As I was driving down the boulevard, someone inside my head was telling me to run over those people standing in front of the store. BAM!!!!! I accelerated and plowed through them, sending people flying over my car.

Ordinary people know how to easily control such impulses. This is because such psychopathic mishaps do not occur within their minds. The problem lies with those who harbor "other voices" in their heads that dictate their actions. We all have our demons, but we do not let them dominate our lives.

Vincent van Gogh, the most renowned artist of our era, carried a sorrowful voice in his head. His final words were, "The sadness will last forever." What if those voices that caused him such despair had never existed? Would we still be able to witness his genius on canvas?

Then there is Francesca Woodman. She threw herself from a building at the mere age of 22. She left behind a body of photographic work that puts Cindy Sherman to shame. I genuinely do not understand why Cindy Sherman receives such critical adoration. To my mind, it was merely a matter of good timing and fitting the cultural context.

Today, we all spend roughly 80 years enduring this tragedy called 'life.' And it is a tragedy, for in the end, we all die. Those who end their own lives before their time comes likely concluded that enduring those 80 years simply wasn't worth it. When I consider how fleeting and, in some respects, utterly meaningless life is, I can empathize with that mindset. However, with a normal state of mind, one cannot even imagine taking one's own life. It takes an incredible amount of guts to resolve to commit suicide!

What if, instead of listening to those inner voices, they had used those guts to endure those 80 years? What if they had continued to cultivate their talents through the passage of time?

It is the 'individual' that brings about change under the name of progress in this life. The famous names in history are all individuals. Thomas Edison, known for discovering electricity, for example, was ultimately just one person, an individual.

It was the exact same kind of inner voice they heard that drove them to accomplish their feats. I suspect that those who ended their journeys prematurely listened to voices calling out from the dark side.

What saddens me is that we are deprived of the joy of watching their ideas evolve and fully come to fruition. David Gilmour of Pink Floyd created surreal music in his twenties during the 1970s. He has settled into himself with such grace and confidence; I cannot help but deeply respect him. Despite what his album title, The Dark Side of the Moon, might imply, I am certain the inner voices he heard were not from the dark side.

We exist in a cycle. We are born, we spend our time, and we die. A new generation flourishes, and they too die. It repeats endlessly. Perhaps, to justify those who take their own lives, they caught a glimpse of something beyond this life and simply preferred it. Who knows!

I, too, have two relatives who committed suicide. One threw himself from a towering smokestack, and the other drank himself to death, expediting his already failing health. I grew up with him until I was ten, and lived with him for a few months when I was fourteen, so I feel I can say I knew his childhood well. I miss him. Though not as often as before, I used to cry when listening to his songs. He was a man of genuine talent.

Life may not be as sacred as it once was, but it is something we must deal with as long as we are living. We fear death because we do not know what lies ahead. Despite the uncertainty of our conscious time, everything you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel—that is your universe.