An Open Letter to Beethoven's Suicide Note · 4:08am Feb 19th, 2018
This blog I wrote on April 7th, 2016 that was posted on the group's forum: Anti-Depression Ponies. At the time, I wrote this in order to give those that are depressed a lesson from the past by the one icon that I admire: Ludwig van Beethoven. In this blog, I wrote a response letter to his now famous suicide note that he wrote back in 1802 when it became clear that he was going deaf. From here, I'll sharing with you guys for the first time of my thoughts and reply to the letter that might have been the composer's last.
Dear Ludwig,
While I do apologize for being several centuries late in writing to you, I feel compiled in writing this little letter in hopes that perhaps you and others like you may one day read from.
To be clear, this is not a letter from a fanatic who admires every little thing you've wrote down. But rather, this is a response to the letter you wrote in Heiligenstadt back on the day October 6th, 1802. Please forgive posterity for reading your most desperate, most privet letter as you complicated suicide. Yet, your very own words have driven me to write this response to you.
You started out staying:
For my brothers Carl and Beethoven
O ye men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret causes of my seeming, from childhood my heart and mind were disposed to the gentle feelings of good will. I was even ever eager to accomplish great deeds, but reflect now that for six years I have been a hopeless case.
Aggravated by senseless physicians, cheated year after year in the hope of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible). Born with an ardent and lively temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was compelled early to isolate myself. To live in loneliness, when I at times tried to forget all this. O how harshly was I repulsed by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing, and yet it was impossible for me to say to men speak louder, shout, for I am deaf.
I have a confession to make Herr Beethoven: I too have a hearing disability in which it has made a profound impact on my life. Although it is not deafness, the humiliation of having a hearing disorder in which I could not process information as well as others. The only way I could describe it is that if there's too much noise in a certain place, all of that sound is mixed in to a confusion of noise to the point where understanding another person is very difficult. You might say that it's like although you can hear, you're still deaf at times. Not to say that this also affects my speaking as well, where I stutter, I pause mid-sentence, I get my own words mixed up to at where the other would ask me what I just said.
The thing is, I'm self-aware of this fact. Every single day of my life I've been aware of this. While I envy you that when you were born, you had perfect hearing in which you could hear every note of beauty that comes to you, I on the other hand, could hardly make it out. Not to say that my parents tried what they could to help me. From learning life goals from people who are worst then me mentally, to going to speech therapy for a time only to drop them completely when I gained little to nothing from it.
Ah, how could I possibly admit such an infirmity in the one sense which should have been more perfect in me than in others, a sense which I once possessed in highest perfection. A perfection such as few surely in my profession enjoy or have enjoyed - O I cannot do it, therefore forgive me when you see me draw back when I would gladly mingle with you. My misfortune is doubly painful because it must lead to my being misunderstood.
For me there can be no recreations in society of my fellows, refined intercourse, mutual exchange of thought, only just as little as the greatest needs command may I mix with society. I must live like an exile, if I approach near to people a hot terror seizes upon me. A fear that I may be subjected to the danger of letting my condition be observed. Thus it has been during the past year which I spent in the country, commanded by my intelligent physician to spare my hearing as much as possible, in this almost meeting my natural disposition.
Although I sometimes ran counter to it yielding to my inclination for society, but what a humiliation when one stood beside me and heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing. Or someone heard the shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents brought me to the verge of despair, but little more and I would have put an end to my life - only art it was that withheld me, ah it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon me to produce, and so I endured this wretched existence - truly wretched. An excitable body which a sudden change can throw from the best into the worst state. Patience - it is said that I must now choose for my guide, I have done so. I hope my determination will remain firm to endure until it please the inexorable parcae to bread the thread, perhaps I shall get better, perhaps not, I am prepared.
Trust me Ludwig, when you couldn't hear right or speak right, you tend to stay away from other people too. I mean, why wouldn't you? You can't understand them, and they can't understand you. I too understand the loneliness all too well. I bet you too have felt that you live in a world of ghosts, and you're the only one in existence that's really alive. I live in a frame of mind that because of my disabilities, why would anyone be mad enough to listen to me? That even though I've proven myself as a talented writer, that I'm still considered stupid, broken, even invisible for others to associate with.
I too want to be with like-minded people. I too want to have relationships without fearing that my hearing or my speaking would drive them away. But realizing that this may not happen, I too drove myself to exile when nobody wants to hear what you have to say, nor take the time to listen. I confined myself my room, while although it's in a house that my family lives in, I still can't help but feel alone. I've been trying to cope with this loneliness through art.
I confess, I'm not a composer, but a writer. I write stories and characters in which at times may seem a little too real. As insane as it sounds, I have too much ideas for these imaginary stories. For I have a drive to create, to keep on writing even if there's no possibility of anyone viewing it. Yet, I know why, I want to prove to myself, and to others that I too have a voice. I'm sick of being the student, the errand boy, a janitor for cleaning up my father's one room real estate school. My art feeds me with hope that my mind through my characters will outlast me, even when I'm gone. And my writings would triumph over my isolation.
Forced already in my 28th year to become a philosopher, O it is not easy. Less easy for the artist than for anyone else. Divine One, thou lookest into my inmost soul, thou knowest it, thou knowest that love of man and desire to do good live therein. O men, when some day you read these words, reflect that ye did me wrong and let the unfortunate one comfort himself and find one of his kind who despite all obstacles of nature yet did all that was in his power to be accepted among worthy artists and men.
When one finds out what they are good at, asking oneself to do anything else then the one thing that has brought him joy is impossible to live with. I too have to comfort myself when nothing, not church, not family, not even friends would be there to comfort you. At the same time, doing that art, your music and my writing, is like the most faithful of friends that we could always turn to. For they do something that very few people could, they empathize with us in our pain.
You my brothers Carl and [Johann,] as soon as I am dead, if Dr. Schmid is still alive ask him in my name to describe my malady and attach this document to the history of my illness. So that so far as possible, at least the world may become reconciled with me after my death.
At the same time, I declare you two to be the heirs to my small fortune (if so it can be called). Divide it fairly, bear with and help each other. What injury you have done me you know was long ago forgiven. To you brother Carl, I give special thanks for the attachment you have displayed towards me of late. It is my wish that your lives be better and freer from care than I have had. Recommend virtue to your children, it alone can give happiness, not money. I speak from experience, it was virtue that upheld me in misery.
To it next, to my art I owe the fact that I did not end my life with suicide.
Farewell and love each other - I thank all my friends. Particularly Prince Lichnowsky and Professor Schmid - I desire that the instruments from Prince L. be preserved by one of you, but let no quarrel result from this. So soon as they can serve you, better purpose sell them. How glad will I be if I can still be helpful to you in my grave - with joy I hasten towards death - if it comes before I shall have had an opportunity to show all my artistic capacities. It will still come too early for me, despite my hard fate and I shall probably wish it had come later.
But even then I am satisfied, will it not free me from my state of endless suffering? Come when thou, will I shall meet thee bravely. Farewell, and do not wholly forget me when I am dead. I deserve this of you in having often in life thought of you how to make you happy, be so.
-Ludwig van Beethowen
Ludwig, in the future many would consider you as a beast, and an angry man who cares only for his own music. However, in this final part of the letter, I can see that you have a heart. Even in your misery, you care about the family that mattered. I know from your past about your father that treated you horribly and exploited your gifts when you were so early. From this, I could guess that you only kept the ones that really mattered to you closely.
Before I end this, I want to say thank you for living. Even after you wrote this suicide note, even after every sense of hearing was gone, you still composed. I'm saying thank you because, even when we'll never meet, you gave to me and all of humanity something we all needed. Hope. From the last movement of your Ninth Symphony, you've given me the hope that even this lonely, broken man who could barely hear or speak, that he too, could be immortal.
With deepest of gratitude,
-CrackedInkWell.
APD? While not diagnosed, I have does enough research to put two and two together. My hearing is great, far better than average, but as soon as interference like a fan, the wind, or rustling objects occur, everybody's speech becomes half gibberish. I can sort out the first syllables and some vowls maybe. Also makes auditory memory short, unless I have some kind of visual reinforcement.