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Thailand: Suicide Rates Skyrocket Among Poor Under Coronavirus Lockdowns
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silentwitness
Guest
There are a lot of transient workers in Asia stuck in regions a long way from home with no access to wealth to support themselves and any family they may have with them.
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Maximus1
Guest
This reminds me of a priest who gave a talk about where our sense of value comes from.
The premise was absent God, and his Divine Indwelling, all sense of esteem, value, worthiness and also things like shame, are derived externally.
Like others listening, my first reaction was scepticism I admit. But he convinced me. We take in wealth, esteem, praise, respect, as well as all the negatives like shame and UNWORTHINESS, via (name removed by moderator)ut from the world and others. THE WORLD GIVES US OUR IDENTITY OF WORTHINESS AND UNWORTHINESS and in doing so controls our self value and happiness.
He described it as fickle, ever changing, transient, fleeting. There one day in abundance, the next day maybe the opposite.
Life is like a hamster on a wheel virtually persuing one and avoiding the other, and men and society furnished these things from outside to in.
Eventually the priest made the case this was false value that controlled us and determined our happiness.
This is the secular world we as Catholics opperate in, to a large extent, even if we are dutiful and pius. Atheists are relegated to value determined for them this way. Materialism and such governing self worth outside to in.
Then he said God is the only source of self value inside to out. The earliest Christians knew this. What the tradition calls our Divine Indwelling is all the value we actually possess that is neither transient,or dependant on the world. Inside to out. Since that sermon I read Meister Eckhart who taught his students about the spark within each of us and it seemed to be the same thing of greatest value that was truly ours, always there, and not dependant on anything but God’s love.
It got me thinking, I can see how they took vows of poverty and where for me, the adjustment would be hard and an act of sheer will and willingness, for them understanding the intrinsic value of God within, the vow was easy to keep.
God over mammon in the sermon, it isn’t great feats of mindset and will. It is understanding ones true value is intrinsic. Jesus didn’t present a gauntlet of will to overcome with God over mammon, Jesus provided knowledge that we have God over mammon already. Understanding this mammon looses it’s imperative quality.
Anyway I see tragedies like this suicide OP and am reminded of the value of faith. Men are OTHERWIZE taught by life that value and worthiness and shame and unworthiness are given to them and taken from them by the world. And those things can be as fleeting as trying to grasp strands of smoke. In the end buried, they don’t go with you and are gone eventually. Our mystics understand this. I see people like this and pray because they are badly in need of the lesson from that priest.
The premise was absent God, and his Divine Indwelling, all sense of esteem, value, worthiness and also things like shame, are derived externally.
Like others listening, my first reaction was scepticism I admit. But he convinced me. We take in wealth, esteem, praise, respect, as well as all the negatives like shame and UNWORTHINESS, via (name removed by moderator)ut from the world and others. THE WORLD GIVES US OUR IDENTITY OF WORTHINESS AND UNWORTHINESS and in doing so controls our self value and happiness.
He described it as fickle, ever changing, transient, fleeting. There one day in abundance, the next day maybe the opposite.
Life is like a hamster on a wheel virtually persuing one and avoiding the other, and men and society furnished these things from outside to in.
Eventually the priest made the case this was false value that controlled us and determined our happiness.
This is the secular world we as Catholics opperate in, to a large extent, even if we are dutiful and pius. Atheists are relegated to value determined for them this way. Materialism and such governing self worth outside to in.
Then he said God is the only source of self value inside to out. The earliest Christians knew this. What the tradition calls our Divine Indwelling is all the value we actually possess that is neither transient,or dependant on the world. Inside to out. Since that sermon I read Meister Eckhart who taught his students about the spark within each of us and it seemed to be the same thing of greatest value that was truly ours, always there, and not dependant on anything but God’s love.
It got me thinking, I can see how they took vows of poverty and where for me, the adjustment would be hard and an act of sheer will and willingness, for them understanding the intrinsic value of God within, the vow was easy to keep.
God over mammon in the sermon, it isn’t great feats of mindset and will. It is understanding ones true value is intrinsic. Jesus didn’t present a gauntlet of will to overcome with God over mammon, Jesus provided knowledge that we have God over mammon already. Understanding this mammon looses it’s imperative quality.
Anyway I see tragedies like this suicide OP and am reminded of the value of faith. Men are OTHERWIZE taught by life that value and worthiness and shame and unworthiness are given to them and taken from them by the world. And those things can be as fleeting as trying to grasp strands of smoke. In the end buried, they don’t go with you and are gone eventually. Our mystics understand this. I see people like this and pray because they are badly in need of the lesson from that priest.
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KMC
Guest
Perhaps. When I see people like this I think they are also in need of some material basics.
I’ve been to Thailand. What I noticed is that there are many, many people who scrape by each day selling something. I call it a “merchant economy” (my description.) If you walk down one alley way, its like an “Autozone” parts store. One booth has a person selling all kinds of wiper blades, another booth has a person selling all kinds of chamois and work cloths, etc. Many people sell food on a tiny cart big enough for a 12" by 12" grill. My point is that when a country like that is in lockdown, that is equivalent to starving the poor people who can’t sell enough to buy the basics. Every day for them requires they sell something to survive. Take that away, and you take away their ability to survive.
They need more than a talk from a priest.
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silentwitness
Guest
It sounds like a clever priest.
I think that even the idea of God produces sanity and intelligence into the world.
Naturally having the idea of God helps to view the world objectively and to associate morals with events. Absent this God centered culture i think that (over time) we revert back to animals and all that becomes important is our wants and our narrow viewpoint.
Eventually i think this affects how society sees truth. For example, a man can say he is a woman and others must uphold these humanistic ethics as truth because state law forces people to at least mouth that truth as real.
We lose sight of an objective truth and eventually believe it does not even exist. I think Christianity is in this battle right now and i pray it starts fighting it’s corner instead of a weak capitulation to ‘modernity’.
I think that even the idea of God produces sanity and intelligence into the world.
Naturally having the idea of God helps to view the world objectively and to associate morals with events. Absent this God centered culture i think that (over time) we revert back to animals and all that becomes important is our wants and our narrow viewpoint.
Eventually i think this affects how society sees truth. For example, a man can say he is a woman and others must uphold these humanistic ethics as truth because state law forces people to at least mouth that truth as real.
We lose sight of an objective truth and eventually believe it does not even exist. I think Christianity is in this battle right now and i pray it starts fighting it’s corner instead of a weak capitulation to ‘modernity’.
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1cthlctrth
Guest
The costs of unemployment:
www.theatlantic.com
As the express rounded the curve, my great-grandfather jumped down from the platform, where witnesses reported he had been pacing for 10 minutes, and lay down across the tracks.
When the engineer was finally able to halt the train 100 feet past the platform, Roy Humphrey had disappeared beneath its wheels. His last act: raising his head to look at the oncoming train.
Roy was one of at least 40,000 Americans who took their own lives that year and the next, the two-year span that suicide rate spiked to its highest recorded level ever: more than 150 per 1 million annually.
Suicide is not strongly correlated to the economy, but to unemployment. In the modern era, for every 1 percent increase in the unemployment rate, there has typically been an increase of about 1 percent in the number of suicides, according to Steve Stack, a professor at Wayne State University.
Suicide and the Economy
"We never spoke of them. Why would we?" Learning the the truth about my great-grandfather, and 40,000 Americans during the Great Depression
www.theatlantic.com
As the express rounded the curve, my great-grandfather jumped down from the platform, where witnesses reported he had been pacing for 10 minutes, and lay down across the tracks.
When the engineer was finally able to halt the train 100 feet past the platform, Roy Humphrey had disappeared beneath its wheels. His last act: raising his head to look at the oncoming train.
Roy was one of at least 40,000 Americans who took their own lives that year and the next, the two-year span that suicide rate spiked to its highest recorded level ever: more than 150 per 1 million annually.
Suicide is not strongly correlated to the economy, but to unemployment. In the modern era, for every 1 percent increase in the unemployment rate, there has typically been an increase of about 1 percent in the number of suicides, according to Steve Stack, a professor at Wayne State University.
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