I should probably end it. Especially if I’m not going to do the right thing (I’m not.) People like me shouldn’t be. You reach a certain level of moral corruption and you’re no longer capable of living a normal life. And I just don’t have it in me to do the whole self-sacrificing redemption arc thing. So, self-destruction it is.
But that requires letting go. Detaching from all the impossible dreams I’ve built up over the years. Affirming that all the beauty present in this world is not worth tolerating this kind of suffering and alienation for. Allowing the full weight of my self-inflicted misery to finally infect those who care for me.
I just don’t think I have the heart to do it. To let go of who I could’ve been. To draw a line under the failure of my life. To contaminate all the positive memories of my youth with the truth of my ultimate worthlessness. I can’t seem to do it. I’m too hooked on the delusions of my past. I can’t bring myself to crush it all. To crumple up the repulsively stained script of my life and throw it in the trash where it belongs.
But I should. And that’s a real mindfuck. To know I shouldn’t exist, but keep attempting to continue. So many opportunities for self-sabotage.
It would seem rational to attempt to minimise the amount of suffering I cause myself while still in existence. Except that I deserve to suffer. People like me should suffer. Any happiness or peace I did find would be a further failure of conscience.
Apparently it’s not enough to fear the flames and pitchforks. You must repent of your actions in your heart. And I don’t. Not unequivocally. That’s the funny thing about evil – it doesn’t leave you, even when you recognise it. I can understand something’s wrong, and feel guilty and ashamed at times, yet still want to do it again at others.
So I’m not reformed, repenting, contrite, or saved. I’m essentially channelling my own evil, attempting to avoid contaminating others too badly whilst doing so. But I really shouldn’t. I should cease existence. I’m a cancer. A public health risk.
Dopamine distractions are always tempting, but tend to end in other kinds of suffering. Tearing it all down is fun while it lasts, but all I’m often left with is a greater awareness of how far I’ve fallen.
I’m alone, with the constant fear of the guilt and the evil within. A little hell of my own creation. Maintaining any kind of resolve feels impossible.
5 comments
Spot on and well said. I deserve to suffer. Off switch please.
“Except that I deserve to suffer. People like me should suffer.” That sure rings a bell, eh. I often feel am not suffering enough in life. There’s a book, ‘Crime and Punishment’ whose ending portrays this guilt from two perspectives. One kills himself and the other chooses to live out his suffering. I guess we too just keep negotiating these two options, living in an uneasy limbo that is perhaps worse than either option.
I often think about the story of Crime and Punishment (though only a televised version, as I never finished the book.) For me I tend to feel that in order to fully embrace and ‘live out my suffering’, I would need to believe it was for some purpose, that there was some consolation to doing so.
For example, if I had somebody by my side who really needed me to do so (which I think is true for the main character.) Or I believed that the process would fundamentally change and ‘reform’ me. Or if I was really convinced that there was life after death, and that doing that might go some way to ‘wiping the slate clean’. As things are though, I can’t help feeling that doing so might be a huge mistake.
Limbo is right, though I’m not sure whether it’s worse than choosing one way or the other. I suppose in order to know we’d have to have a clear view of the ultimate consequences. But I guess that regardless, the experience won’t last forever.
Yeah, man. It’s not so much guilt, but purposelessness that’s the bane of our existence. You shot it straight- reform to what end? I really don’t know. Just for the heck of it, maybe. Belief in afterlife sure helps here. I guess that’s why they say ignorance is bliss- gives you some blind hope to cling on to.
I called this state of limbo worst in the sense that you’re only pretending to live and are always preparing to die. But yeah, this too can be looked at as our fair share of suffering and then again, like you said, it won’t last forever.
Nothing lasts forever so whatever 🙂
🙂 Guess I’ll keep on pretending (and preparing).