LIFE: A REJECTED RELATIONSHIP
1
Have you gotten what you wanted...? Life was a relationship that you rejected.
Rupert Everett
The above quote is from an eulogy that the 47 year old Everett recited for a friend in 2007. Isabella and Rupert were friends since their teenage years and a cursory reading of her Wikipedia biography is telling- Isabella's inability to "find a home in a world she influenced"- is provocative. Isabella's inability to succeed at suicide is typical of females; typically, men use more violent methods, guns, whereas women use less violent methods, such as an overdose of sleeping pills. We understand weed killer as less violent, although it can not be less painful.
While amorous pursuits are oftentimes and accurately described as "rejected", we are intrigued by understanding life itself as a "rejected relationship"-intrigued by the wording and the repercussion of the meaning. We doubt that few people see life as a relationship, that is, "the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected." Of course, the deliberate taking of one's life is a rejection of the relationship between oneself and the world.
While amorous pursuits are oftentimes and accurately described as "rejected", we are intrigued by understanding life itself as a "rejected relationship"-intrigued by the wording and the repercussion of the meaning. We doubt that few people see life as a relationship, that is, "the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected." Of course, the deliberate taking of one's life is a rejection of the relationship between oneself and the world.
2
The unexamined life is not worth living.
The Republic
We presume Isabella did not reject her past accomplishments and accompanying accolades, although there must be disappointments. Perhaps past success or accomplishments could not be sustained or perhaps there was little or no stability in her life. We suppose that she may have reviewed her life and realized that that each succeeding decade was worse than the previous decade and understood that there was no reason to continue with the inevitable physical and mental decline.
3
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Pogo
Nietzsche wrote that individuals would "rather will nothingness than not will". We understand this as meaning that an individual would prefer to end one's life than to do nothing, to just exist, to only be; without goals, without aspirations, without meaning. Perhaps we can also understand this "will" as the desire to control or to influence events or circumstances in our lives. When the this ability to influence or gain control over one's life is severely diminished or eliminated, then we can understand why individuals choose this course. Regardless of the reasoning, such as "There are fewer days ahead than behind" or "There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.", the end, that is, the result, is the same.
4
You take the good, you take the bad, You take them both...
The Facts of Life
Everett knew Isabella for decades and we can reasonably presume that he was familiar with her swings in behavior, the manic and the depressive, long before any medical diagnosis later in her life. While it recently become fashionable to diagnose historical figures with a variety of mental and physical ailments, there is a consensus that gifted individuals' brains process information and make connections between various unrelated concepts that is beyond the ability of mere mortals. This creativeness is the "good", but there is also the other side of this "gift", the bad. As a commentator, it seems that, for the individual, the heights of the mania are proportional to the profundity of depression, that is, great minds do not have a small or insignificant depressive episodes.
5
We love life... because we are used to loving.
Fred
We understand love as a type or form of creation. For the gifted composers, we are not surprised that their music compositions sound natural or unforced. But for an amateur with no formal training who does not fully understand the playing techniques of the strings, woodwinds, not to mention the voices, to work with a less than ideal libretto and attempting multiple false starts and countless reworkings for that finished "natural" effect, the drive to create and the success thereof; what is that long arduous process, but falling short of the Divine nature? The same exhilaration can be felt when painting or writing, for we know from long and painful experience that the mediocre can only do one thing well. How can these works be described? They are formed in the unseen mind and come into existence either perfect, as Athena, or as one born out of due time and, by necessity, must be reshaped and reworked until perfected. What is this process, but creatio ex nihilo?
6
I have said, Ye are gods.
Psalm 82
We conclude with two quotes from Rupert Everett:
[She] was constantly dazzled by life and life was constantly dazzled by her.
You were a one-off, a genius friend, your own creation in a world of copycats...