The lives of Wynn Bruce and David Buckel were separated by the distance between Boulder, Colo., and New York City, and the professional gulf between a photographer who worked at a natural foods store and a pioneering lawyer.poses a grave threat to society, as well as an admiration for Buddhist tenets of full commitment to a cause. Both men died by self-immolation – Mr. Buckel in 2018 and Mr. Bruce last Friday, on Earth Day.
That existential anxiety some people feel can be compounded by a sense “that government is not looking out for them. So this institutional betrayal is also a part of the wounding that causes a feeling of hopelessness,” Dr. Van Susteren said. Mr. Buckel had spoken with friends about such acts, saying “that he really admired that level of commitment,” Mr. Kaelber said.I’m not sure I would agree with that. I would argue the ultimate commitment is to stay in the fight. There’s a side of me that thinks” what Mr. Buckel did is “like giving up.”
Mr. Bruce grew up in Minnesota, where he developed a love for the outdoors through frequent trips to a family home in Lutsen, on the north shore of Lake Superior. As a boy, he paddled with his father, Douglas Bruce, in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, just south of the Ontario border. “He enjoyed the outdoors very much,” his father said in an interview.
He also worked at a natural foods store, where he befriended Brian Grossman, a local sculptor with multiple sclerosis.
Mass psychosis and the road to madness….