Man Who Killed Himself In Harvard Yard Left a 1,900-Page Online Suicide Note

[meegbear]

35-year-old Somerville, MA resident Mitchell Heisman shot himself in Harvard Yard last Saturday in front of a tour group. Turns out he left a sprawling, deeply-researched suicide note, conveniently located at suicidenote.info.

Heisman's suicide was notable for its setting: the steps of Memorial Church in picturesque Harvard Yard, with high school students on a tour ambling about. But Heisman's suicide note is interesting, too. The 1,900-page .pdf document is funny at points, impenetrably academic at others, and exhaustively researched with a selected bibliography of nearly 20 pages ("What suicide note would be complete without a bibliography," Heisman jokes.) In the introduction to Suicide Note, Heisman says it's a "a theoretical application of sociobiology to politics." But it's also a lot of creepy stuff about cyborgs and the Holocaust and overcoming our "will to live."

Heisman's mom told the Harvard Crimson she had no idea that the book he was working on was to be his suicide note: "All I knew was he was finishing his book and he was happy about that," she said.

Heisman's Suicide Note will never be taught in any classrooms, but it should definitely set a new standard for suicide notes everywhere. And it's creative commons, too! (Suicidenote.info seems to be down right now, but you can still download Heisman's Suicide Note here, if you want to do that for some reason.

http://gawker.com/5647036/man-who-killed-himself-in-harvard-yard-left-1900+page-online-suicide-note

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. When's the sequel coming out?

[roguevalley]

12. those poor kids. what a selfish bastard. I know if he had a lucid

moment he might have reconsidered but doing that in front of kids was a low low thing to do. I feel for his family.

[Dappleganger]

2. Is it shameful of me...

to wonder when a movie will be made? Sorry, just couldn't myself.

[slackmaster]

3. Obviously availability of a gun caused him to "snap" with no warning and spontaneously kill himself

Stop the madness now, for the children.

[NoPasaran]

4. Just the bullet points, please

I'm a busy man

[Barack_America]

5. Sounds manic. It's a shame he didn't get help. nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Wasn't there an article around here the other day talking about the

thin line between Genius and insanity?

[Wednesdays]

7. Well, now I know I'll never commit suicide

I couldn't possibly top this.

[Warpy]

8. Brevity being the soul of wit

mine will say "Because."

[Blue_Tires]

9. TL; DR

At least he left something behind and got his 15 minutes in death...

[Canuckistanian]

10. Tragic

[EXneoCON]

11. Hooooly crap....

:wow:

[Astrad]

13. Philosophy, Cosmology, Singularity, New Jersey

One of the chapter titles. He had a sense of humour...

[Uncle Joe]

14. 1900 pages is not a note, that's a novel.

Thanks for the thread, meegbear.

[slackmaster]

16. IIRC the copy of War and Peace I was forced to read in high school was about 1,900 pages

:nuke:

[struggle4progress]

15. Suicidenote.info seems to be back up. Poor guy seems to have talked himself into some POV like

Because of Liberal Democracy, it is rational for me to commit suicide with the hope of helping everybody to create God through technology, with about 1900 pages of argument to explain the view

I'm not a psychiatrist, but I might guess this something like schizophrenia: some bizarre and self-destructive assumptions supported by an impenetrable logical apparatus. I won't download and read a 1900 page suicide note, but it might be of interest to professionals

I often enjoy Gawker but this really isn't funny :cry:

[mitchum]

17. I would like to think this would stop any other postmodern scribblers...

(since he set the bar pretty high), but it won't