Carpooling Loonies
By Jinki Beldia

Suicide clubs and this manic-depressive column

Are the Japanese becoming too adventurous or just too scared?

While David Fincher's 1999 film The Fight Club (based on Chuck Palahniuk's novel) continues to be one of the best films I have ever seen, it was also among the most disturbing ones, the kind that stick to the mind even when the eyes are shut and the head is secured under a pillow. Come to think of it, unsettling mental pictures come when the lights are out. Then suddenly the mind becomes an irradiated stage with a thousand characters, and just one head to deal with them all. But The Fight Club remains a fictional film (thick and heavy on psychological filling) while Japan's suicide clubs are real with real people having an inexplicable hunger for death.

Historically, the seppuku (hara-kiri is the more common language term) has been an integral aspect of feudal Japan. It is a painful and ritualistic method of stomach-cutting, either ordered as punishment or chosen in preference to a dishonorable death at the hands of an enemy. According to my readings, it was during the advent of Buddhism in Japan when such glory of death was developed. It simply means the Japanese yet had to discover the dark side of their being, and their subdued obsession for morbidity.

The (sometimes) inconceivable act of hara-kiri is still strongly embedded in the Japanese culture. It only changed in form (should I say in style?) especially with the advent of technology. More and more young Japanese have turned to online discussions of suicide to relieve themselves of daily stress. But it doesn't stop there. On BBC's special report, 26 people have already died these past two months in group suicides. It's funky how they do it (my definition of funky can either mean good or bad, into the groove or out of it. Sometimes you have to look at my face to know what I mean. In this case, decide for yourself). There are personal ads on popular Japanese-based websites where despondent Japs post a very short personal backgrounder, and end it with this announcement: I am looking for someone to die with . More than twenty people dying this way in a short span of time is a real-life thriller.

My short-lived venture into a degree in psychology (and long-life search for answers outside my college university, plus a Masters degree I'm earning at home and for free from my fiancé's amazing brain) has taught me that every human being has a quiescent tendency for self-destruction. It is life's hitches that set this tendency on fire, eventually leading some to their anti-climactic demise and some to their half- baked death. Death cheats a few who are not really ready for it. Here in Iloilo, we have had our share of gruesome stories of people hanging or shooting themselves. Jaggedly-written suicide notes reveal betrayal or near-poverty situations that push them to committing suicide. I believe the latter is considered the common cause.

But thank you to the Pinoy's general fear of dying (mostly because God will not like it), because if being broke is enough reason to desire death, then more than half of the population on this side of the world would have had already committed nationwide suicide a long time ago. I think it also helped that as kids it was instilled in us the belief that Filipinos are like bamboo tress that sway to the direction of the wind making us more resilient compared to other people's of the world. I don't know about you but I would rather think of myself as a carnivorous plant like the “toothless” (a variation of Dionaea muscipula ) whose name suggests innocence but in reality is indisputably wild. Oh well, in a country like ours (remember the place every breathing citizen wants to flee?) only a madcap will have a chance of surviving. Forget about being like a bamboo. It makes you sound mundane.

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I received an e-mail a couple of days ago asking why Carpooling Loonies takes long rests. Well that's how long I take my coffee breaks. Seriously, since the beginning, Carpooling has never been a press-gang column. It was never meant to come out with crackpot stuff just to have something to write. This writer does not sniff around so much. After all, I don't do news writing. I can't. And I'm so comfortable just taking the backseat. There's a lot you can do back there and some people fail to see that. As for your second question, since Carpooling Loonies is a manic-depressive column, I can't recall when this actually started but I remember how. I had too much coffee one afternoon and my brain just would not stop grinding for days. I suspect it was about more than a year ago. Finally for your third question, yes, you're right. Carpooling Loonies was called Loose Ends in my past life. All in all, this column is about three hundred years old with only a little more than three entries. (E-mail me at jinki_young@yahoo.com)