He chose to kill himself in a motel room. Society has a vested interest in identifying dead people for lots of reasons. He could have walked up into the mountains and died far away from people. I don't feel any animosity towards him, but his actions were sad but also selfish. He had to know, some poor working woman was going to find him and deal with his decision perhaps the rest of her life. It is also possible he is a criminal who has fled his crime. As I said, there a lots of reasons authorities should pursue his identity, though as time passes, it becomes a smaller and smaller priority. Of course there is also possibly a family member who would like to know what happened to him. I understand and respect your position, but I do not agree. As a matter of public policy we should attempt to identify all john and jane doe's.
I agree and disagree. I am working to find out who he is too.
But, while we see his actions as sad and selfish, often times someone who is in a state where suicide seems the only option has a very different view. The way they view it is doing everyone a favour or doing it to preserve honour. Especially, if it is depression and a series of ongoing let downs to a family, it is viewed as being a burden or disgrace. Depressed minds can easily justify and rationalise they are doing a service to loved ones. That's just how it is. We can view it selfish and such, but somewhere in the middle is the reality of how that person came to be there in that hotel room and the feedback he got about himself (perceived or real) from those around him. Suicide is really a permanent solution to the desire to remove ones self from stress and pain. One's stress and pain has far exceeded their abilities to cope. He could have viewed it from the side of being selfless (not selfish) and doing everyone a favor. As non-one seems to be looking for him, that can show a lot about his support network and how he arrived at this conclusion.
If this is a cultural/ethnic case, suicide might be the corrective action to misdeeds. Expected to preserve family honour. An eye for an eye. We can judge from our perspective, that this is a selfish act, but by doing so we might be eliminating the possibility that suicide is a norm or expectation based on his culture and norms. This might have been the admirable thing to do. If this is the case, then him being in a situation where "you are no longer my son" or "we consider you dead" could be why he is not looked for. There are many, many reasons, like culture, religion, and others were this was his appropriate recourse to his life, the corrective action. And if he was an americanised immigrant, the meandering and wandering before he ended his life would reflect the cultural confusion.
We are wanting to bring Lyle home, but there could be a very big chance he has "no home" or "people" to go to. The thing is, we can judge him by his actions and our views on what right and wrong might be, but we haven't been in his shoes and we don't understand what led him to there. In that understanding, maybe we can look at clues to figure out how he ended up there. Is it selfish, yes and no. Could it be SELFLESS, yes and no. It just is.
