> This very idea lead to several prominent Stoics to commit suicide, because might as well hasten my eventual ceasing of being?
Can you please cite a few of these prominent Stoics? Notwithstanding exceptional circumstances, suicide in general was not held in particularly high regard by the Stoics. As Epictetus has it[0]:
The following is another way in which the minds of those are affected who hear these precepts amiss. For example, a friend of mine for no reason at all made up his mind to starve himself to death. I learned about it when he was already in the third day of his fasting, and went and asked what had happened.—I have decided, he answered.—Very well, but still what was it that induced you to make up your mind? For if your judgement was good, see, we are at your side and ready to help you to make your exit from this life; but if your judgement was irrational, change it.—I must abide by my decisions.—Why, man, what are you about? You mean not all your decisions, but only the right ones. For example, if you are convinced at this moment that it is night, do not change your opinion, if that seems best to you, but abide by it and say that you ought to abide by your decisions! Do you not wish to make your beginning and your foundation firm, that is, to consider whether your decision is sound or unsound, and only after you have done that proceed to rear thereon the structure of your determination and your firm resolve? But if you lay a rotten and crumbling foundation, you cannot rear thereon even a small building, but the bigger and the stronger your superstructure is the more quickly it will fall down. Without any reason you are taking out of this life, to our detriment, a human being who is a familiar friend, a citizen of the same state, both the large state and the small; and then, though in the act of murder, and while engaged in the destruction of a human being that has done no wrong, you say that you "must abide by your decisions"! But if the idea ever entered your head to kill me, would you have to abide by your decisions?
Can you please cite a few of these prominent Stoics? Notwithstanding exceptional circumstances, suicide in general was not held in particularly high regard by the Stoics. As Epictetus has it[0]:
The following is another way in which the minds of those are affected who hear these precepts amiss. For example, a friend of mine for no reason at all made up his mind to starve himself to death. I learned about it when he was already in the third day of his fasting, and went and asked what had happened.—I have decided, he answered.—Very well, but still what was it that induced you to make up your mind? For if your judgement was good, see, we are at your side and ready to help you to make your exit from this life; but if your judgement was irrational, change it.—I must abide by my decisions.—Why, man, what are you about? You mean not all your decisions, but only the right ones. For example, if you are convinced at this moment that it is night, do not change your opinion, if that seems best to you, but abide by it and say that you ought to abide by your decisions! Do you not wish to make your beginning and your foundation firm, that is, to consider whether your decision is sound or unsound, and only after you have done that proceed to rear thereon the structure of your determination and your firm resolve? But if you lay a rotten and crumbling foundation, you cannot rear thereon even a small building, but the bigger and the stronger your superstructure is the more quickly it will fall down. Without any reason you are taking out of this life, to our detriment, a human being who is a familiar friend, a citizen of the same state, both the large state and the small; and then, though in the act of murder, and while engaged in the destruction of a human being that has done no wrong, you say that you "must abide by your decisions"! But if the idea ever entered your head to kill me, would you have to abide by your decisions?
[0] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Epictetus,_the_Discourses_as_...