infinite jest

David Foster Wallace committed suicide yesterday. Suicides always make me angry, and then I feel guilty for feeling angry at someone who was apparently in great distress. I just wish I could stop people from doing it. I do not believe in an afterlife, I believe that this is the only life we get, and to waste it is an affront to the memory of people who wanted to live, but couldn't. These beliefs seem mean-spirited somehow, but they have helped me to avoid that end. But what mattered more, this last bad time, was knowing that I have three young children who are depending on me in every sense--even as they develop their independence. I can't help but wonder if Wallace would have made the same choice had he had children.

Dfwallace