The author Hunter S Thompson shot himself in February 2005, four days after writing a note in black marker headed “Football Season Is Over” (he meant American gridiron football): “No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring?.?.?.?”
Now football season is over for everybody. Sports worldwide have stopped for the pandemic. That obviously isn’t the biggest mental-health risk around right now.
The French scholar émile Durkheim showed in Suicide (1897) — one of the first serious sociological studies of almost anything — that when people experienced a sudden change in circumstances, some took their own lives.