does anyone feel like suicide is sort of an obligation? … I am lucky enough to have somepeople who care, or who I think care…and yet…I create so much of a burden on their lives… I can’t really describe it, but I see it, they see it, and they say so…I can’t live with that burden. I can’t change myself, can’t reinvent myself, I honestly don’t want to either…I’ve tried too many times.
Now I know they wouldn’t tell me to go and off myself, but isn’t what’s holding them back….just habit? Just attachment, built over time? Do they even know if they would be better of without me? Do they really know who “I” am? Or is their subjective vision of me just a projection of what they want to see? If that’s all it is, then how can they know if the real thing is worth keeping around?
I doubt people are capable of much detachment from their emotions, ergo they are unable to distinguish their construct of “me” from the real “me.” And the real thing is a burden, a cancer so to speak. A reality some refuse to accept. The imagined thing, well that is whatever people want it to be.
I’m of course far from impartial, but…I don’t know, this feels like an obligation. An obligation that I should be fulfilling, but which I am putting off for some reason, probably because of these habitual attachments I’ve formed…I used to think that living was an obligation, an obligation to others, but now I realize that it’s the other way round…it seems like fate that I go.
A quote from a certain philosopher…
“My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness…When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared…There is still a difference between my life and the lives of other people. But the difference is less. Other people are closer. I am less concerned about the rest of my own life, and more concerned about the lives of others.”
I guess I’m at that point of being more concerned about the lives of others than my own…to live on in someone’s memories is better than to live on in this body. Or I might just be misinterpreting the quote. Whatever.
And wow. too much talk about “me” and “I” makes this sound selfish. I guess it is. I guess some of this also sounds far-fetched. But it’s been on my mind all week, so might as well…
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This. This is a distilled piece of many of my thoughts on SP. Crazy isn’t it?
First I posted about how humans are inherently selfish and can view only through the lens of their own, never truly others.
Then there is the internal and external construct of “self.” Am I what others perceive me to be, or am I this bundle of constantly changing and growing cells and emotions that cannot be known by anyone other than I? If so, does that mean I am truly, truly alone?
Then the concepts of external and internal motivation came along. I had been living in fear of disappointing others, I thought. Not values, nor an intrinsic burning flame drives me. I live simply not to die.
Suicide does seem inevitable to me at times-
-less an obligation.
But it was a surprise to read this post. Thanks for writing this.
I somewhat think that quote actually says something along the lines of breaking down the barriers you’ve built to separate yourself from others, and that breaking them made the author worry less about his own perception of mortality. As in, if he shares his life with others he feels less of an alienated, stuck on a tunnel towards death individual. I could always be wrong too, lol.
As for what you mention… i had written a huge wall of text about it, but i guess it’s simpler than that… you’re assuming your loved ones role in all of this. Do you know them really? like you say, they might not know the real you… what makes you think you can read their intentions and how much of a burden you are/aren’t? perception plays a big part there, because like you say, it’s a bit difficult for a human being to be completely impartial.
Suicide (big imho here) is not an obligation, it’s a personal choice, like most things in life. You choose to do something, you choose not to act, etc. If you ask me most people can be a burden or a blessing at the same time, it only depends how you look at it, but sometimes “the cure” is a hell of a lot worse than the illness.
I was looking up some famous lines and letters from suicide victims and some of them seem as normal as you or I. One even said they were bored and why wait. Amazing they could set their minds at ease.
I do not believe in faith or Karma and if there is a plan for me by God then He sure is having fun messing with me until that plan is revealed. It is like he has a present in his hand and is telling me how awesome the gift is and then goes to hand it to me and says, “No not yet, maybe later!” Then starts chuckling.
I think I am ready to not care about the gift or force him to show it to me while I depart. I think it should be left up to the individual. I cannot tell you how many times I was at the VA waiting for my meds and seeing much older people struggling to walk, struggling to hear, having trouble seeing and some needing to be told what they were doing there. To me that seems scarier than dying. When you get to that certain point you do not even feel like you are living but just staying alive long enough so someone else does not get upset that you are gone. Not sure if that makes sense.