Elliot is missed

[scoobdo90]

I was not a big elliot smith fan untill killed himself. Elliot commiting suicide just made me realize the passion in his songs and that was an amazing person. I never personaly meet Elliot but I truly have love for him because i just never realized how troubled he really was untill he took his own life. PLEASE WRITE BACK




"I'm on love with the world through the eyes of the girl who's still around the morning after"
- say yes

[static bobmatic]

it would be nice if he wrote back but i don't think they have internet cafes up in heaven

[fake concerns]

That would be great if they did have them up there (?). I'd love to see a new post from (h)elliott...

:)

He'd be telling us how nice heaven is. It's like NYC in reverse, everyone's nice to eachother, and it smells nice... that's what he'd say.

:D

[Mike McCusker]

Elliott is often missed and sometimes his fans miss spell his name.

Why is that?

[(sniff)]

Elliott to me is like a cooling wind in the summer, when the heat is unbearable and finally you feel this nice cool burst of air that makes you realize that everything is alright.

maybe it's just the alcohol, but probably not

[alicec123]

i don't want to be mean or hateful, but this is something i've been thinking about a lot lately. please don't get upset with me, but just hear me out. i guess i am a christian, but not a very good one from any view. what sort of heaven do y'all believe in and who goes there? do you believe in hell? i think i used to believe in hell, i think i was even okay with the idea of it, probably because i didn't think about it. that is, until elliott died, my dad got his third dui, and was in jail, and my uncle was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, which gave him not long to live, and he was always in and out of the hospital for weeks in and only a few days out before he got another infection. anyway, so much for me, this made me start thinking about hell. i'm the only christian, however miserable, in my family, in fact, i think i very well may be the only one that believes in any god. these sorts of things i'm sure you know or can imagine make it difficult to think about hell, but i guess i couldn't help myself. remember ophelia, traditionally, elliott would probably be thought hell-bound, even though scripture says over and over that men cannot view other men's hearts, so we cannot judge or even know probably anything about an afterlife. after much thought, and a lot of pain in my guts, i realized that i'm not okay with hell. i don't think that any man could ever do, think, or make any decision that would to me justify eternal damnation. life on earth seems too confusing and blurred for something so certain and so sharp. my mind tells me i must trust god for just this reason, that everything is so unknowable for me, but i can't turn over the twisting in my guts, saying that something's not right about hell. it is maybe my own fear of it, and nausea caused by the thoughts of what it could be, and be like, when god's love causes pain to those separated from it. so maybe they're excuses, and maybe they're not, but it's a very real concern, and it makes me atleast physically ill to think about it. there may be heaven, or there may be nothing, but we shouldn't seek comfort in a blindness made of dreams about a heaven we pretend to know something about. elliott constantly read about philosophy, the love of wisdom, in which god, as first cause or Being or Nature or Goodness or tyrant and so on, and his plans for us, living and dead, was and is always a primary concern. remember socrates, surely one of the first and best known philosophers, always tells those to whom he speaks through plato, or plato tells us through socrates, that the wise man may know nothing, but he is wise because he knows that he does not know.

take care of people
ell

[nikita]

I think a lot of the time people use the word 'heaven' sort of as a figure of speech. I don't personally believe in heaven, but it's a very positive word to me and it feels nice to hear others speak of Elliott being in heaven. I definitely don't believe in hell, though. I just think that we are here to learn things, and that we keep coming back to try to become better souls. We are just energy, and I think we are all connected, so I can't imagine one soul being sent to hell for eternity. That just sounds ludicrous to me. Eh, but I'm not Christian, so I might not make any sense to one.

but why you would think you were being hateful just stating your opinion about this?


but to the original poster: why would suicide make Elliott seem like an amazing person? I think he was amazing, but he would still be amazing to me if he was alive.

[sombre winds]

The concept of hell that people talk about is primarily christian. Eternal damnation. It didn't come from judaism but from egyptian mythology.

As for Elliott ending up in hell- I don't believe in the christian version of hell and even if I did there's no solid proof that he killed himself even though people have resolved this in their own minds.

[alicec123]

i think i often offend people without meaning to, without thinking.

i just. i mean. i'm always fascinated when other people are really certain, very sure of anything.
i don't ever find myself very certain of anything really. i am ashamed to say that, but i don't know how it works, certainty. but nearly everyday i think i'm not sure i'd want to serve a god that would send his creations to such a place, especially the kind of boy elliott seems to be, but i don't know so i can't say. oh how many more things to be unsure of! i'm tired.

why aren't people more concerned that elliott's death is still unsolved? or are they?

i dreamt for a long time that he planned his death as a hoax to escape. it's become unmanageable though. no more less manageable than his picture i guess. does that make sense?
take care of people.
ell

[sombre winds]

Originally posted by alicec123
i think i often offend people without meaning to, without thinking.

i just. i mean. i'm always fascinated when other people are really certain, very sure of anything.
i don't ever find myself very certain of anything really. i am ashamed to say that, but i don't know how it works, certainty. but nearly everyday i think i'm not sure i'd want to serve a god that would send his creations to such a place, especially the kind of boy elliott seems to be, but i don't know so i can't say. oh how many more things to be unsure of! i'm tired.

why aren't people more concerned that elliott's death is still unsolved? or are they?

i dreamt for a long time that he planned his death as a hoax to escape. it's become unmanageable though. no more less manageable than his picture i guess. does that make sense?
take care of people.
ell

I think most people think his death is solved. And I agree about serving a god that would send people to the christian hell. It's interesting that a majority of religions believe in reincarnation. There were early christian groups as well as early jewish groups that did in addition to the religions we associate with a belief in that.

[ParentheticalThought]

Originally posted by alicec123
i think i often offend people without meaning to, without thinking.

i just. i mean. i'm always fascinated when other people are really certain, very sure of anything.
i don't ever find myself very certain of anything really. i am ashamed to say that, but i don't know how it works, certainty. but nearly everyday i think i'm not sure i'd want to serve a god that would send his creations to such a place, especially the kind of boy elliott seems to be, but i don't know so i can't say. oh how many more things to be unsure of! i'm tired.

why aren't people more concerned that elliott's death is still unsolved? or are they?

i dreamt for a long time that he planned his death as a hoax to escape. it's become unmanageable though. no more less manageable than his picture i guess. does that make sense?
take care of people.
ell

I don't agree with Sombre that most people think Elliott's death is solved. It may seem that way because we talk about it that way to kind of dull down the pain of not knowing, to make peace with it in our minds. I mean, if we had to know, what could we possibly do about it? It would be an untenable position to put ourselves in, so we don't.

It seems like the pain of not knowing is what you're talking about, but in a bigger sense - not knowing how heaven/hell work, if they exist at all, where Elliott might be, what God even means. It's funny/awful how one man's death can open such a can of worms, isn't it?

I'm not advocating that you fool yourself into believing something you can't or ignore information that you think is important (although it works for me sometimes, like with Elliott) but just don't be so hard on yourself, ok? Some answers may take time, and some may never be found. When you put yourself in an untenable position, you're more likely to lose your grip.

[sombre winds]

Originally posted by ParentheticalThought
I don't agree with Sombre that most people think Elliott's death is solved. It may seem that way because we talk about it that way to kind of dull down the pain of not knowing, to make peace with it in our minds. I mean, if we had to know, what could we possibly do about it? It would be an untenable position to put ourselves in, so we don't.

It seems like the pain of not knowing is what you're talking about, but in a bigger sense - not knowing how heaven/hell work, if they exist at all, where Elliott might be, what God even means. It's funny/awful how one man's death can open such a can of worms, isn't it?

I'm not advocating that you fool yourself into believing something you can't or ignore information that you think is important (although it works for me sometimes, like with Elliott) but just don't be so hard on yourself, ok? Some answers may take time, and some may never be found. When you put yourself in an untenable position, you're more likely to lose your grip.

I'm surprised by your response. Everyone talks as if suicide is a given. Are there still people out there for whom this remains a possibility rather than a fact?

[llaurens]

Originally posted by sombre winds
I'm surprised by your response. Everyone talks as if suicide is a given. Are there still people out there for whom this remains a possibility rather than a fact?

I'm definitively one of those people. I'm still in the "don't know what happened" situation, and I know for sure I am not alone....
The problem is that is very frustating because we may never know for sure, but despite what some people think, what happens this day still doesn't make sense to me.

[ParentheticalThought]

Originally posted by sombre winds
I'm surprised by your response. Everyone talks as if suicide is a given. Are there still people out there for whom this remains a possibility rather than a fact?

I think there are a lot of people out there for whom suicide is a possibility rather than a fact. I mean, how could we possibly know without any doubt? There was a thread that veered off onto this topic a few months ago and most of the people who posted said that, although they thought it more likely, and even probable, that Elliott committed suicide, they couldn't be sure; they were just tired of having to qualify their thoughts every time they spoke of his death, and tired of dredging up the pain of not knowing. So they just settled on something and stuck with it. And that's pretty much where I stand too. I think there's a lot more evidence for suicide than for murder. It's a lot less painful for me to think of his depression playing itself out to the end than to think that he was finally getting better and then murdered by someone he trusted, and that that person is going unpunished. And so for both level-headed and non-level-headed reasons, I speak of his death as a suicide. But I know perfectly well all that matters is whose hand was on the handle when the knife went in. It's just that I'll probably never have that answer.

[sombre winds]

Originally posted by ParentheticalThought
I think there are a lot of people out there for whom suicide is a possibility rather than a fact. I mean, how could we possibly know without any doubt? There was a thread that veered off onto this topic a few months ago and most of the people who posted said that, although they thought it more likely, and even probable, that Elliott committed suicide, they couldn't be sure; they were just tired of having to qualify their thoughts every time they spoke of his death, and tired of dredging up the pain of not knowing. So they just settled on something and stuck with it. And that's pretty much where I stand too. I think there's a lot more evidence for suicide than for murder. It's a lot less painful for me to think of his depression playing itself out to the end than to think that he was finally getting better and then murdered by someone he trusted, and that that person is going unpunished. And so for both level-headed and non-level-headed reasons, I speak of his death as a suicide. But I know perfectly well all that matters is whose hand was on the handle when the knife went in. It's just that I'll probably never have that answer.

Thanks for this. A long time ago I researched signs of suicide vs murder and I believe the facts point away from suicide so I don't think of his death as suicide. I usually get shit whenever I say that so I thought most people were resolved. It's nice to know there's still some ambivalence about this.

[ParentheticalThought]

Originally posted by sombre winds
Thanks for this. A long time ago I researched signs of suicide vs murder and I believe the facts point away from suicide so I don't think of his death as suicide. I usually get shit whenever I say that so I thought most people were resolved. It's nice to know there's still some ambivalence about this.

You're welcome. I know that you do get shit for your opinions on this and it's just unfortunate that we can't all tread more lightly on each other's feelings, whatever they might be. Especially since we're all really in the same boat, even if some of us are sitting at one end of it, and some of us are sitting at the other.