Under current circumstances I can almost understand why a seeker of justice and advocate for equality might not want to live. And I believe that anyone has the right, after considering the repercussions among family and friends, to end their life. As a political statement, self-destruction is a powerful act, especially if its intent is clear and it is carefully planned for maximum positive impact.

But I confess I was puzzled three years ago by the self-immolation of a climate activist in front of the Supreme Court; it wasn’t clear to me what he thought his fatal protest of official inaction would accomplish.

Closer to home, on Jan. 20, hours after the presidential inauguration in Washington and the local Martin Luther King Jr. Day march and rally, a young man set himself on fire in the middle of Center Street on the Black Lives Matter mural in front of Santa Cruz City Hall. Thairie (pronounced ty-REE) Ritchie, the 29-year-old activist and community organizer, was rescued by firefighters and helicoptered over the hill to a hospital where, as of this writing, he is alive and being treated for third-degree burns. A letter (or letters) he allegedly left explaining his act were reportedly in the possession of the Santa Cruz Police Department but the city, citing family privacy and state law, has declined to release any additional details or information about the incident.

Huey P. Newton, a co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland in the late 1960s, titled his 1973 autobiography “Revolutionary Suicide,” by which he meant a commitment to abandon one’s previous life, figuratively and if necessary literally, to advance the cause of revolution. He did not, as far as I know, advocate actual suicide — unless perhaps in a revolutionary shootout with law enforcement officers. The Panthers were Second Amendment fundamentalists who lived by their guns and often paid a price for doing so. (In 1989 Newton was fatally shot by a member of a rival group, the Black Guerrilla Family, over a cocaine deal.)

Wanting to understand better what Thairie Ritchie had done and why, I attended a gathering Sunday, a march and vigil by and for a “community of love” (part of Thairie’s message, according to more than one speaker) that was also a political rally featuring such call-and-response chants as “Whose streets?” “Our streets!” and “Free free” “Palestine!” One speaker invoked Indigenous Amah Mutsun land and spoke of “burning down the wagons of capitalism, patriarchy and especially colonialism.” Another invoked Thairie’s key words: “unity, education, political change.” As it got dark on this cool gray day, flowers, photos and candles were placed in the middle of Center Street where he had made his statement.

Without the content of the rumored letter(s), exactly what that statement was is open to speculation. I don’t know enough about Ritchie’s politics or personal life or state of mind or mental health to venture any guesses in that regard. I get that he was protesting present conditions, but beyond bringing several hundred people together in solidarity to console one another over the sacrifice and suffering of their friend, it’s unclear what he meant to accomplish.

Funerals and memorials can be cathartic opportunities for a collective outpouring of loss, grief and shared memories of the deceased. Here a speaker Sunday led a chant: “Our brother is alive; he’s gonna be OK” to send him healing vibes. “We gotta be a community,” said another. “How we talk to each other matters.” I agree that this radical and traumatic act deserves deeper discussion in its political, philosophical, ethical and moral dimensions, implications and complications. Beyond good wishes and prayers for Thairie Ritchie’s recovery, he has raised very serious existential questions about activism, self-harm, strategy, judgment and effectiveness that merit rational inquiry.

A community of love can also be a community of wisdom.

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call 988, the National Suicide Hotline. Stephen Kessler’s column appears on Saturdays