If a play ends on a sad note, it is dramatically and literally classified as a tragedyunlike a comedy; think Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar and the Gods are not to Blame. They are all tragic plays and aptly classified so.

If a man/woman/girl/boy commits suicide or dies suddenly and accidentally, it is sadly and sympathetically called a tragic situation; think the man who hanged himself on Legon campus, the man who jumped from a story building to his own death and the girl who died through an attempted abortion. These are all tragic situations with some sort of dramatic dink to them.

Such sad situations sadden but still interest me. I'm fascinated by suicide. Suicide fascinates me. What motivates would-be suicide victims? Why self-kill?

I am no sociologist, nor psychologist, and neither a psychiatrist; but, like you, I have enough common sense to come up with a few street-savvy theories or logical and rhetorical questions on what motivates would be suicide victims to self-kill.

The man who butchered his wife to death and went to hang himself, was he mentally correct? Did he experience mental problems before? Was it only anger which drove him to murder and self-murder?

The man who goes somewhere alone to hang himself, was he a happy member of his society? Were there friends and family or he was always alone, friendless, feeling as if every man and society was his enemy and wished him bad?

Should we blame the society or the suicide victim?

Sometimes we can blame society. At other times, the blame will solely belong to the victim. The boy who went ahead and hanged himself, was it not because his mother shamed him in school?

The man who shot his wife and blew his own guilty head off, was it because the wife threatened to expose and shout over his extra marital affairs or there was a more mysterious or mundane reason?

Enough of the questions. What's so dramatic or, forgive my diction, playful about suicide? Here it is.

It is my belief that self-murderers can be classified into three categories: those who allow society to push them into committing suicide, those who do it for no rhyme or reason and those who provoke or initiate a catalyst situation that inevitably prompts then to ponder and execute suicide.

I pity the first two types. The third? May God pity them.

The guy who killed his girlfriend and hanged himself or terminated his own life because he lost the girlfriend to another guy; I will call him a coward who acted in a play or drama I will call 'Cowardy.'

The guy who shot himself because he could no longer cope with the myriad problems of life that some are bedeviled with (poverty, loneliness, dejection, depression, etc), I will pity but still call a coward, please forgive my thought pattern and God have mercy on me.

Yes. He had poverty problems or something else. But if you can't man up or be a woman enough to bare your chest and withstand every evil shot life will have at you, then you're a coward (though, yours is a sad, sad situation)?

I also once contemplated suicide, but didn't do it? I wasn't a coward enough to do that to myself. I didn't own my life and couldn't decide to end it. My attempted suicide story I will definitely narrate in another article.

Now, if you're someone who's contemplating suicide and want to be the latest actor in the Cowardy genre, I will plead and plead and plead with you to think thrice and thrice and thrice. Message me through scdugah@yahoo.com; I have a farewell gift for you. Seriously. I really do. Message me.

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