Nobody saw that coming

A friend emailed me that his neighbor's son had just committed suicide. Please understand that I am not in a position to share many details.

The son was 30 years-old and it was totally out-of-the-blue. In retrospect, the only (possible) tell is that the son moved all of his useful tools and equipment from his garage in one state into his dad's barn on "the farm" in a different, nearby state.

This graphic understates the risk of suicide. A casual observer would think that the risk drops dramatically after age 12. What is really happening is that other causes-of-death are increasing and thus dilute the share caused by suicide.

US data shows that the crude death-rate from age 20-through-84 is 18/100k per year, +/- 3. It is a bit lower than that through the teen years but coroners have been known to rule deaths "accidental" to protect the mental health of the parents.

Prayer and prayer-like practices

I was listening to a video about dementia and how prayer seems to help knit the shattered neural links back together. I sent this link to a friend going through a rough patch. I took the liberty of jumping into the video mid-way to minimize the amount of material he would have to wade through to get to the material that applied to him.

Cutting to the chase, prayer (and similar practices) slows down the process that runs the accelerator-pump that gooses cortisol FIGHT/FLIGHT production while simultaneously feeding the regions of the brain that help us feel "connected" to people and the regions of the brain where we conceptualize continuity of past/now/future. 

Since he has a lot of animosity toward Christianity and "organized" religion, I also took the liberty of sending him some links to a channel that posts inspirational prose that are (mostly) NOT Biblical:

"Many good videos HERE

The man in the arena by Teddy Roosevelt (Run-time 6:20)

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann (Run-time 3:30)

IF by Rudyard Kipling (Run-time 2:50)

The Road Less Traveled by Robert Frost" (Run-time 1:45)

Do what you can

It is pretty clear that the young man who chose to commit suicide had been planning it. In the note, he left all of his "things" to his dad.

It is almost impossible to stop somebody who has fully decided to commit suicide. The window of opportunity is BEFORE they make that decision.

It will be useful to me and to other readers if you shared some of your favorite pieces of prose in the comments.