Think of the old cliché about “the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master”.
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.
via Denouement: David Foster Wallace-Kenyon Commencement Speech 2005.
noting this because of the obvious, except didn’t he hang himself. checking google…. yep. he did.
I suppose hanging is also head related? I suspect that warring with one’s mind is indicative of his depression. Seeing intellect as something that controls, or is to be controlled, is the core of the problem. [same with emotions]. But that’s tangential–wanted to post that reading his essays [which I love] never ceases to frustrate me that I find his fiction so dull. Also, I like this part best [emphasis mine]]:
The alternative to boredom is not escape. It’s engagement.