Suicide is warfare. Suicide is a warrior’s code.

In battle, the Malaysian exploding ant (Camponota saundersiant) swells a gland in its abdomen with acid and then bursts its abdomen wall, consuming its enemy along with itself.

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Jones et al., “The Chemistry of Exploding Ants, Camponotus SPP. (Cylindricus COMPLEX),” Journal of Chemical Ecology 30 (2004): 1479–92.

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What was his secret so as to suicide so memorably and nobly? To practice philosophy, explains the philosopher’s philosopher, is simply to practice for dying and death. To train for death and dying, he says, is then to fear death the least of all men when you step upon that final stage so you are at your very best.

But how to practice what seems to be unpracticable? It is said that Seneca read the Death of Socrates three times before climbing into a warm bath and opening a vein and bleeding out. This is practice as reading about someone else’s witnessing someone else’s doing so it is done so you may do yourself. More precisely, in the film Days of Thunder (1990), the megastar Mr. Tom Cruise plays a Cinderella in the sport of North American Stock Car Racing. He comes out of nowhere to rise to the top and dominate the field. How did you get so good?, marvels one competitor. I watched in on television, says Mr. Cruise. ESPN. The coverage is excellent. So you see, it is possible to take in the representation of the idea enacted so as to do it well yourself. This is called arete. Excellence as merely seeing through your mind’s eye so as to translate seeing into doing, body and soul, so it is done. Be excellent, they say.