I guess I was always somewhat anxious – hesitant, cautious, prone to holding back. But I now find the awareness of all that could go wrong crippling. There are some fairly unique things that could happen to me that don’t threaten most people. But a lot of it is just the general hazard of being alive. What if I get hit by a car, and crippled? What if I’m violently assaulted? What if I get dementia and end up crazily confessing my worst deeds? What if there’s finally a nuclear war? What if at some point in the future an artificial intelligence determines that I’m a deviant and decides to imprison and punish me?
I suppose I’m just a massive coward. Any reminder of how bad existence could get sends me into a tailspin. Any threat of pain terrifies me.
A lot of the time, I’m left with the thought that it would be better to kill myself as quickly and painlessly as possible, to remove any chance of something worse happening to me. But then the thing I’m most afraid of is hell, so that doesn’t seem like such a good choice.
I’m afraid to live, afraid to die, afraid of everything. I’m afraid of existence. I wish I could go back, to when the world seemed a little safer.
But the reality is I have to live with this constant nervous churning in my gut, subconsciously anticipating something terrible.
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yes, existing is rather hazardous, but then, as you observed, killing yourself might not turn out too well either. So maybe just live in the moment instead of stressing about what could happen… because really, you don’t have a clue what could happen.
I was toying with the idea of a post dealing with my fear of humanity’s capacity for evil, but in a way, you’ve summed it up.
I’ve never really experienced full force human evil – never been displaced by war, violently assaulted, held against my will, treated badly by truly evil people. Lucky me. The potential is always there though. I cannot imagine being wrongly imprisoned for the color of my skin or religious beliefs.
Anyways. Just an addendum to your thoughts. The chance that something terrible is waiting just around a corner both fills me with dread, and makes me consider my good fortune.
I’ve only had the lightest of brushes with human malice myself, though perhaps that was enough. I wish I could just enjoy the good fortune I do have. Rationally, I know that if you spend your time worrying about something you cannot prevent, then you needlessly double your own suffering. But I don’t know how to stop – how to switch off my awareness of potential threats. I hear or read something troubling, and this deep sense of unease starts to grip me.
“The chance that something terrible is waiting just around a corner both fills me with dread, and makes me consider my good fortune.” Good point there.
Yeah that sucks. I get what you mean and feel the same. Can’t we all just upload our consciousness’s into a single mainframe computer already?
Ah, but what if that computer then traps us in a hellish existence which we’re unable to escape (like an episode of Black Mirror)?
I think what you’ve said perhaps sums it up. It’s often only once your worst fears have already materialized that you kind of stop worrying. When your dignity has been severely violated, you’re not as afraid of it happening again because you realise that it’s just another of life’s senseless realities. That, at least, is my experience.
Life’s senseless realities. Good phrase. That describes up a lot things that happened.
We all have a lot in common actually… we all sound pretty much abused, violated and afraid. If only we could just be in peace.
We do have a lot in common. Used, abused , and afraid.
Fear has been significant in my life too. To the extent that it serves to protect me, I let it. When it starts to hobble me, I assess it. Then I give thanks for the good I receive and the horrors that I haven’t.
I really have only ever had one fear and that would have been that I would live past 18 – see I had a plan since I was very very small that I would commit suicide as soon as possible, and that happened to be 18. I knew if I couldn’t kill my self then at 18 .. things would only get worse but I’d no longer have any options available that would make it as easy as it would’ve been then to kill myself. I’ve been pleading to get out of this life since a child… I was 100% ready to die. I have no idea why I am alive today.. lol.
Seems to me what you are thinking of, is a time, when you had never yet been grown as a ball of cells inside of your mothers womb. With my newfound understanding that death rips through you, it is not irrational to desire a time when what is you had not been born. There will always be more pain than pleasure for humanity. But you only live once, and you only die once. Best to do both, the right way.