To be perfectly honest, if I had only one more day to live, I would spend it playing my keyboard, shutting the windows, and falling asleep. I have no ambition or inspiration to bring my music to the public. I have no desire to seek out anything that will help me to live. So I wonder… are some people just worthless? Are there people who, no matter what they learn and acquire, they just drag themselves into the general population and take up space? I don’t want to live out there. I don’t want to try. Maybe I’m one of those people.
At least that’s how I feel. I’m not trying to convince anyone that it’s an inherently good thing to rob dozens of loved ones and acquaintances of your presence and put them through grief. But I can’t help but ask… am I worth more to them dead than alive? Should I continue to drain my friends and kin of their energy as they try for the umpteenth time to convince me that I have “potential?” Is it better to let someone better take my spot on the world stage and use their support systems when things get tough? Mine don’t really do much for me. They just tell me all the good things I could be doing if I weren’t wishing I could leave.
I’m not brave. I’m not adventurous. I hate taking risks. I’d rather everything just end.
I’m already on meds. I already tried having faith in a higher power. I have already talked to people “like me.” I have been taking to a therapist for three years. I have talked about this years ago with family and friends. At some point, it’s a matter of wanting life. I am mentally resistant to hope. I simply see it as being unlikely that I will make a living independently and responsibly. I just lose my energy so easily.
I don’t want to make my life last. I want to give my opportunities to those who want to live, but can’t. But I have friends and family who will suffer, so I’m stuck here.
I think a lot of people are out there who won’t commit suicide, but they put one reluctant foot on front of the other. They tried love, but if just gave them huge responsibilities and a divorce with nowhere to go. They tried carers, but they just ended up in debt and stuck in a meaningless job without a savings or a contact. They tried finding something to commit to, and they are pushed every time. Why should they take up all this space? Leave room for the adventurous ones, the pioneers, the ones with guts.
I don’t want to be here. But I’ll stay until I can leave.
15 comments
Worthless and useless are two different things
allow me to clarify. Are there some people who simply drain the public of their resources by their very existence? in other words, do some people simply need to move out of the way for others?
Two different things
ongaku, kikoeru. 😉
I’ve also wished I could donate my “resources” (in my case my able-bodied-ness) to a certain someone (or better yet, someone who might even be grateful) and just quit the planet. Like it would be a counterbalance to the “hurt” your departure might cause.
How do you feel about doing something less risky but still music-related, like teaching? Or alternatively, you could keep the music as a hobby but put your focus into some other skill set that suits you just as well. Regardless, I hope someone can listen to you with a compassionate ear, and I hope at least that can help.
Yes there are people out there who I’d call worthless and useless, but not you. I think people who belong to death cults like Islam which teaches to rape, enslave and kill unbelievers would fit in that category-along with evil corrupt politicians, mass murderers, bullies and people who cause harm to others.
Unfortunately its the introspective ones like yourself that get depressed and suicidal-I’m a music lover and so I value musicians and plan to be one also. Music is one of the few things in life that make me want to keep living.
Kikimasuyo. Ongaku ga daisuki.
I taught music for a few years, and I don’t miss it. I hate teaching… It’s too stressful for me and it made my depression worse when I was married. So many students who, sad to say, just wasted their own time and others’. I felt they were as needless as I was.
I hope I can see things differently.
I was raised in Islam, actually. I was taught a lot of stupid things that I’ve had to unlearn my entire adult life.
I don’t know, though… Is it worse to be someone who contributes harm, or one whose mind sabotages his talents by making him sluggish and fatigued, no matter what he does? At least the one who harms has a drive to live and win–he or she can be turned around, motivated to take that energy and channel it into good. There’s a chance with those people. It’s the lazy, “I’m-too-tired,” ennui-laden people who don’t get inspired anymore. They should get out of the way, I think.
or maybe I’m just talking crazy. I don’t know.
Lazy. Lazy? lol…
As if the “lazy, ‘i’m too tired,’ ennui-laden” people are “in the way.” They’re already “out of the way.” They’re “too tired” to get in anyone’s way.
And here you are, insinuating that such people are more harmful than those who arbitrarily cause needless suffering to others, often based on bizarre and delusional cognitive constructs.
Talking crazy indeed.
When I say they are “in the way,” I mean they work in jobs that they can’t put enough true effort in, and they could be replaced by someone with more motivation and stronger support system when things go wrong. Or they are in relationships wasting their partner’s time and energy when he/she could be with someone else. That sort of thing.
The people who cause suffering on purpose get noticed, and they pay a price because we have established consequences for them. It’s the ones who put on a fake smile and get by, like me… those are the ones who slow things down in the long term, in my opinion. Yes, the bizarre and the delusional ones make many people more miserable. But when 1 in 5 people in this country are on some type of psych med, and ~90% of people depend on caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol just to get through a day, how many of those people get their real motivation from within, and how many just get it from a bottle or cup alone? A fraction of us simply don’t know how to project value or intrinsic worth on anything we do anymore. We just feel dead already.
I wasn’t trying to offend anyone with these comments. I came to this site to try to make sense of what I think. If you are offended, there’s not much I can do. I guess it’s best not to bother reading my posts if it makes you upset. Sorry about that.
There are no worthless people in this world, imo. Just societies that treat them like it.
The “laziness” you are describing sounds like depression. That’s a real illness that people need treatment for. But people often don’t get it either because the illness itself prevents them or because people that are supposed to help them don’t offer what they need. (For one thing, I think too little attention is paid to all the different possible causes/forms of depression. It can be genetic or non-genetic; it can be situational or ever-present; it can stem from a complicated past trauma, or just because of a simple vitamin deficiency. Of course a lot of these can stack as well but my personal view is that when people say they’re depressed for “no reason,” they probably just don’t know because the actual cause was either too obscure to the doctor/psych or too subtle for the patient to have become aware of it without very careful reflection.)
ongaku wa, motto tsukutte kudasai ne
I’m not sure there is such a quality as, “worthless,” unless you’re talking about “…in relation to…” something else. Are you worthless? Worthless in what way? Am I worthless because I don’t really give two hoots about the plight of the rare spotted algae that only grows in the local pond? To some people, maybe. But only because their interests lie in protecting some scum on a pond, and I don’t care about that scum. I say pour bleach on the shit and kill it with fire.
So what do you mean by, “worthless?” If the definition of that word is, “just taking up space,” then are packing peanuts worthless? If so, why the hell do we keep making so many of them? There’s value in everything if you approach it in a certain way, but it’s sometimes hard to understand how one person relates to the society bustling about around them. If one person who doesn’t bustle very much, and doesn’t really want to bustle, is worthless because of their cantankerous non-bustling ways, that implies everyone should be a certain way, and any other way is inherently bad, or wrong, or incorrect. I don’t think there is such a thing – just subjective opinion and valuation that changes from person to person.
I appreciate your honesty. Well, the packing peanuts are meant to buffer the more important items. Am i just the population who bears the brunt of the pain of life, so the more precious of us will survive? Am i just insulation?
Everyone shares equally in that pain of life – it just takes different forms for different people. There are no precious and disposable people, there are only people in whatever situations they find themselves.
You’re you, and you’ve yet to realize what and who you are, I imagine. Most people are in that same boat.
for me, being offended is just a natural part of life. I tend to handle it better than most. I tend to handle “being offended,” better than most people handle their own fear of offending. That was a good reply to my previous comment, and you get some respect points for it, despite the fact that i still disagree with the underlying premise that the aforementioned people are “in the way.” Those types of people are usually very easy to navigate, should you find them obstructing your path. It’s the ones imposing themselves and actively impeding progress, who are the real problems.
“Are there some people who simply drain the public of their resources by their very existence? in other words, do some people simply need to move out of the way for others?”
This sounds oddly like an argument some neo-liberal shithead politician would use to cut social programs… right before they unveil these fancy new “work camps”. Typically, the lazy “scroungers” in our society have been so beat down into the ground by all these aggressively “motivated” types, that they don’t have the energy to get out of their way while simultaneously being kicked in the face. Sorry, did I scuff your shoes?
I apologize for the hyperbole, because I can see you’re suffering too. But you are wrong, sorry. The only worthless AND useless people in our society are the ones without empathy and the ones who take everything and know the value of nothing. You are not that kind of person, and you don’t need to be getting out of anyone’s way. A little bit of care and kindness goes a long way, especially in this fucked up world.