I’ve been trying again to pin down what exactly it is I’m still doing here. As usual I’m failing to find a clear answer. By any standard morality, I would’ve been dead long ago. Any halfway decent person would’ve committed seppuku immediately in my situation. But of course if I were halfway decent, I wouldn’t be in this situation. Clearly, conventional morality doesn’t have a strong enough pull on my mind to motivate me to do ‘the right thing’. I feel shame, I feel guilt, I know that there’s a deep wrongness in me. But that’s apparently just not enough.
I don’t want to hurt my parents. They’re genuinely good people, and so invested in me. Perhaps too invested. When I think about them getting the news, or having to ID the body, or just having to live with it, day after day, for the rest of their lives…I couldn’t do that to them, could I? It feels like the ultimate dick move, after everything else I’ve put them through, and all they’ve done for me.
I’m not attractive, confident, or care-free enough to enjoy a life of meaningless hedonism. My existence is anxious and uncomfortable. I’m not at ease in my own skin, both metaphorically and literally. Nausea overwhelms me every time I leave the house. Dorian Gray I ain’t.
There are times I feel this world of ours could be so good. If only it weren’t for shitheads like me, screwing it up for everybody. Perhaps suicide would be the selfless thing. Or perhaps I should do something to help. If only I wasn’t so useless. I mean, the other 7 billion of you seem to be doing mostly fuck all, and most of you have something to live for – friends, partners, children, careers, plans. How the fuck is a useless prick like me going to make any difference whatsoever, with none of that? Activism requires people skills! How do you persuade people that life on this planet is worth saving when you doubt your own life is worth living?
But it would be a shame, if right on the brink of having the technology to make our existence so much better, we used our existing technology to burn our civilization to the ground. Just a thought.
At least the genuine psychopaths love themselves unconditionally. I have to live with the knowledge of who and what I am, both loathing and loving it. Won’t someone please think of the assholes? We have feelings too (mostly rage and self-disgust, but still!)
If only we could know, clearly, what this world is. What happens when we die. Why we are the way we are. If we knew there’d be no punishment, that there was no one watching. Although perhaps that might lead to a moral decline in society. So just me. If only I could know, personally. If only I could be sure.
That’s the thing about a guilty conscience – you’re always anticipating someone finding out, somehow. Awaiting judgement. If not in this life, then after death. The thought that you’d just get away with it – it’s just not acceptable somehow. How could something so awful not have any deeper meaning? Unfortunately, for some things no punishment would ever be enough.
If there is a God, a personal message would be nice. Just to make it clear. The ancient scriptures seems somewhat lacking in consistency and credibility. Almost like they were contrived to justify the interests of those who wrote them.
Would it really be too much to ask to get a clarification on whether eternal damnation is on the cards, and what actions would be sufficient to avoid such a fate? Are all the angels so rushed off their wings that they can’t spare a minute to drop by and spell it out? Do I really have to put all my faith in ancient schizophrenic middle eastern nomads?
I think I’ve put myself beyond any real human connection. If that’s the only meaning to be found in a Godless world, then where does that leave me? Do I keep banging my head against the impossible, just for the sake of it? All you need is love, but what if you’ve made that impossible for yourself? What then? What if you’re one of the lonely people? How do you know when you’re better off giving up the ghost, and saving yourself additional pain? If I could just know…
6 comments
This post reminds me of the song Lord Can You Hear Me? by the band Spacemen 3. Anyway, I think the clinging to life is subconscious. It’s there until it’s not. I’ve always believed reason to have less control than we think.
Yup, I can definitely see that in the lyrics.
I find myself wondering about that too. But that makes me think…is it something I can reason my way into? Or is it something I actually have no control over whatsoever? Will I just continue on miserably ’til I die of old age or dementia, unless something happens to click in my subconscious before then? The thought of that freaks me out. I suppose I desperately want to find some way to be in control of it. I hate the thought of being stuck needlessly in extreme suffering but unable to end it.
It’s hard to say, but you’re still here with a wealth of reasons not to be. Strange ain’t it. I can’t make sense of it either. We’re in a sort of limbo, with our desire to exist winning in the face of our reasoning to the contrary. This site in some ways is a manifestation of this purgatory. I feel an analogy would be holding on to the edge of a cliff when the world above is an apocalypse. There’s nothing to go back up to but you also don’t want to drop. Maybe eventually you realize it’s time to let go. Come on down to the price is right. The price is oblivion. But maybe we’re holding out for a hand to pull us up. It’s unlikely but not impossible. Maybe our brains are still holding out for the unlikely.
Limbo/purgatory is right.
In that analogy I suppose it would make sense to let go as soon as possible, if you know there’s nothing to go back to and you’re suffering. I guess it’s a question of how to get yourself to that point, where you no longer want to cling on.
You’re right that a hand to pull us up isn’t theoretically impossible, though for some it’s more unlikely than others. I suppose a large part of my brain is holding out for that. But the more rational part keeps seeing evidence of how overwhelmingly unlikely it is in my case, and that really hurts. I’m causing myself needless suffering, simply because of my refusal to let go, and I don’t know how to stop.
basefree, that is a good description of the limbo a lot of us, certainly me, have been in.
I know you feel it is bad now but you have a couple of good things going for you now. Your parents support you financially. Life is incredibly expensive. You say they have invested a lot in you? They love you. Love, my dear is a rare commodity. Very rare. Dont take their love for granted. Try being 50, alone, poor, and sick, then ill feel for you. I think there are things you can do to help yourself feel better. Get a hobby. If you want to help the world, you dnt have to be social, do it online. On find a another way. Your right, things have got to chnage, the stagnantion stinks. Its the boringest ive ever sene it right now, no one has nay money for creative persuits and those that do are rich. Theres a lot of problems that are gonna need to be fixed. Its gonna take every last oone of us to do it. Theyre trying so hard to hold onto the old ways. And id like to enjoy the old ways but they are only for the few. I dint look forward to a lot that is to come. If they enact a basic income, NOTHING will be special anymore. Especially if everyone has the same money access. That is going to oresent a shift in priorities to what is important and what is not. I think at forst they will continue to oush consumerism, but when people see it doesnt matter, no ine cares what jeans or shoes thye have on, kinda there now, that will dry up. There is so much to live for whne you have support underneath you, what i woukdnt give to have two finanically invested parents behind me. Love. I know it sucks not to be good looking, neither am i. Hitler fixed that with people breeding to seek the prettiest.