“En cualquier momento el tiempo me suicida”, Jorge Luís Borges.

“At any moment time will suicide me.”

Much was written in the 60s on how increasing leisure time was going to modify our lives. They could not have predicted that an evil man, Steve Jobs, would have thought of something that would waste our time and relieve the pressure on what to do with all that surplus time in the form of the iPhone.

As an obsolete-redundant & retired old man I have plenty of that leisure time and particularly at night when I turn off the lights. Last night I was thinking that I knew 10 people who committed suicide. If there is anything that I learned well at university was a course in statistics. I look at everything statistically even though as humans we can always find exceptions in those rules that defy all predictions. I photographed 9 of the 10 and two were married to the same woman.

Consider that I knew and photographed three people, who did not know each other that died, in separate incidents run over. I wrote about that here.

My Rosemary says I think about depressing stuff and yet I cannot understand why the thoughts on those 10 people came to mind. The last person on my list was J.J. Johnson the ultimate and consummate jazz trombonist. A few years before he shot himself (they say he could not face a long and painful cancer) I sat with him for a chat at the Iridium Club in NY City. He was a gracious and polished gentleman who dressed like one.

Attempting to understand the aftermath of the oblivion we call death is no less difficult or troubling than trying to understand why anybody would escape life.

The young woman here, Carmen, was a bubbly ecdysiast friend of mine who danced at the Number 5 Orange in the late 70s. I will never understand even though I will keep trying why she did what she did to end her life.

I can only add that sometimes when I am driving on a curvy road I get this urge to find out what would happen if I pointed the car straight. My guess is that others get that urge.

Below in Spanish Jorge Luís Borges is asked by a journalist if he ever considered suicide.

En octubre de 1965, Jorge Luis Borges esperaba recibir una buena nueva. Su nombre sonaba para el Premio Nobel de Literatura. Sin embargo, la noticia nunca llegó. Quien sí lo visitaba en un hotel de Buenos Aires era el periodista Rodolfo Braceli. Llevaba una grabadora. Una de las preguntas fue esta: ¿Pensó alguna vez en el suicidio? Luego, Borges respondió con naturalidad.

El creador de El Aleph se sinceró. Le dijo a su interlocutor que sí. Que un día había tomado la decisión, pero que luego pensó en que “con tener la idea” era suficiente.

    “Recuerdo que hasta pensé en adquirir una navaja, una navaja de acero de Inglaterra o de acero de Suecia”, reconocía Borges.

Su idea de suicidio era degollarse o bien cortarse las venas. Mientras realizaba tal afirmación, rectificó. El escritor confesó que, en lugar de la navaja, creía que sería más efectivo el cianuro, como así ejecutó la trágica acción Leopoldo Lugones.

    “La muerte, sin duda, me está acechando, para qué tomarme el trabajo. Antes de mi ceguera pensé muchas veces en suicidarme. Ahora ya es un poco tarde… yo creo que ya no necesito suicidarme”, continúo Borges con su confesión.