Well, the article asks a question, then avoids a direct answer. Here is the question:
Here is the answer:
Believers from an early age in the power of medicine, boomers are more likely than their elders to turn to drugs, alcohol or even plastic surgery to mask their problems. “Boomers do not want to suffer,” Arbore said.
Notice the problem of 'masking.' Yes, you can hide the fact that you are aging, but you can't stop it. You can hide the fact that you are angry and resentful, but you can't stop it... by yourself!
Suffering comes in many ways, some of it we can change, and some we cannot. But, if everything is suffering, then you are going to be overwhelmed by all of it. This is the modern problem: everything is suffering because there are no solutions.
Modern life without God is pointless. It is meaningless. That's what is happening to the 'Baby Boomer Generation' that dropped out of Christianity (largely because most churches were either heretical and crazy, aside from the temptations of materialism that are everywhere) and goes on long searches for 'meaning' that end up requiring significant funding.
You need to save up a lot of cash to afford your next guru. Of course, that's why the Boomers have opted for the Yogi in the medicine cabinet. The problem is that pills and surgery don't give meaning either. You can't live just to take your anti-depressants.
Without meaning, suffering is pointless. Suicide makes sense when there is no reason to go on. To be honest, suicide should be your first inclination the moment that you 'realize' that you are not interested in God. After all, nothing good lies ahead that is worth the suffering.
What is killing this generation is its 'functional atheism.' Like those who are functionally illiterate, you can get by looking like you believe in something other than yourself, but when-push-comes-to-shove your 'salvation' is your own effort.
Suicide is self-salvation. When you can do nothing to avoid suffering, the only option is death.
Recovery begins with a single premise: it is possible to be saved by something other than the Self. It is the opposite of 'Existentialism' and all that kind of stupidity that leads to suicide.
Existentialism says that the Self is the 'answer,' but recovery teaches that the Self is the problem and the solution is a union with a Power Greater Than Self. This makes suicide the ultimate fruit of the Self.
By ourselves, we are already dead. Only by union with the Divine can we find the true meaning of the Self: it is only part of the story. By itself, the self is a burden because it is incomplete.
We become complete when we enter into union with God. In God, suicide is meaningless.
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