Suicide is distinctly human among species.

Non-human animals cannot suicide. How could they? Why would they? Nature seeks self-preservation, not self-destruction. Suicide perverts nature as the undeniable calling to life.

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There is an old joke which begins, How do you get to Carnegie Hall? The answer, chuckle, is Practice Practice Practice.

The joke’s fun is in the double meaning of the question. At first you think you are being asked for directions. Where is Carnegie Hall located? What is the best route to travel? But in truth the question is really about how to be the center of the stage as readiness to perform at the highest level for the most esteemed audience. The question is about how finally to make it. So for Mr. Edwards a key problem was one of practice in learning to prepare, which ultimately means learning to execute. The ancients called this praxis as repetition to become inured to doing so it is done so that when the time comes you do as if nothing at all.

That most famous death of the famous philosopher’s famous philosopher is nothing if not the Carnegie Hall of suicides. The show literally had mis en place to spare. The chambers were reserved and ready for the performance. An audience of sycophants was gathered and arranged with undivided attention. There was laughing. There was crying. There was bathing. At one point the philosopher revealed to his disciples the profound opposite of living, which is, quote, Being dead, unquote. An uncredited slave walks on as keeper of the bowl. Says a few lines. Leaves the bowl. Exit stage left. Then the final words uttered center stage and recorded to resound through time and place. Don’t forget the chicken, says the philosopher. The chicken. The chicken. You cannot stop the chicken dancing.

Critics agree that it was the performance of a lifetime. How wise the man was, raves one reviewer. How high-minded. And when I remember him I am bound to admire him.

Another declared him, The best and wisest and most upright in death as in life.