2nd
January 2018
Dear Mr. Logan Paul,
I’ve just seen your apology on the news and
this topic hits close to me given that two members of my immediate family have attempted
to take their own lives. I have suffered with depression for a lifetime and
have a good deal of experience with mental illness.
Let me say firstly that I understand.
There is a certain spectacle to what you saw in Aokigahara forest of Japan and
even Aristotle wrote of the seeing of dead bodies in his poetics. It may have
seemed right to you to share so unique an experience with the world and not all
of us understand the solemnity involved.
With that, may I point out that the
common person is not good with forgiveness and apologies rarely hit as close to
home as offences. People lash out, they lash out because of the pain of their
memories, and because they need someone to focus that pain on. The depressed
often feel helpless and sometimes even the act of destroying one’s own self is
an act of taking control.
Where does this leave you? Well, sir,
you can turn this negative moment into awareness. More appropriately, you
should find a way to help people with depression. Look at the story of YouTuber
Boogie2988 who became profitable after being discovered by Ray William Johnson.
Boogie was depressed and disabled until Ray gave him economic freedom.
You can do that, Logan, you can help
people. I know you tried by including a
help line in your video, but I mean make it personal. What I think you should
do is find ten people who suffer from depression and make their lives better.
Include them in a blog or find a way to better their situation.
As a YouTuber and a Blogger I know a
person like yourself can change the life of a man like me with a few clicks of
a mouse. You may have made a mistake but you can still do the right thing and
people will love you for it.
Go find someone to help,
Richard Leland Neal
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