Is it only humans, or every thing that is?
In Buddhist thought, the nature of existence is suffering/unsatisfactoriness. So it is we always move toward the desirable, away from the undesirable, being born again and again in a variety of incarnations until we finally are able to transcend the wheel of misery through nirvana. That is literally the goal of the religion: gtfo’ing from reality. I still don’t know whether that is super morbid, or super on the nose. Catch, though, is you can’t just kill yourself, because you’ll just be reborn as some other thing. See, there’s the whole superstitious “karma” mumbo-jumbo that’s never really explained (“it’s just a thing, okay, like the fact that existence is inherently fucking miserable!”). Kinda hit a snag for me when after reading some excellent articles, I saw this as a pretty obvious corollary to Catholic original sin (you’re inherently bad, because a you that you used to be was bad, and now bad things are happening because of bad things this ‘other you’ did. So it’s your fault!). Sigh. All religions are the fucking same.
All that aside. We see all manner of creation behave like this; animals always so freaking anxious about everything cause they don’t know if thing x is going to try and kill them, even the microscopic world has that towards it’s inclined and averse, and talk about all out war, man – the microbial world is hostile af. But we’ve seen in modern experiments that even non-living things tend to just…be inclined to organize as life. Random proteins and water and energy and shit will just churn out life forms in the right environment (I forget the name and specifics but this stuff is an easy Google). Why would elementary particles move toward this state of being? Why does non-life have this predilection to organise as life? Living is constant effort and struggle to not suffer. If we do nothing, we suffer. If we make effort, oftentimes we suffer. Only sometimes does effort lead to satisfaction, and it’s usually helped or hampered by so much outside our control. We get sick, sometimes get well, sometimes don’t. Ever. Why the fuck is suffering so god damn unavoidable, and in this fucked up way, seemingly desirable? And if there is an answer of which suicide is not a part, why aren’t we aware of it?
I now live in a place where I have zero good friends, and a very small number of acquaintances. A subset of my distant real friends know I’ve taken a turn for the worse, but not in total detail. They seem to care, to be invested. But they can’t/don’t take the time to even make the effort to provide some social relief, to connect with me. Life is like that; until a problem is right up in our fucking face we often don’t even notice it. So I don’t blame them. It’s the natural way of the universe, so it would seem. But how revolting the universe is. I know on a cosmic scale every single thing is not relevant whatsoever, but simultaneously, every single thing is. It’s all connected, part of the same whole; I am the universe, and so are you, as is that blade of grass, that breeze – literally every single thing is the product of everything that has occurred up until now and will inform the totality of the future. Does that mean this suffering, this will to die, is in line with all that as well? If so, suicide is never an “early” death; nothing in the universe can happen other than right on schedule. “Nature does not hurry, yet accomplished all things”, says the Dao. Maybe all of this is just me trying to legitimize my feelings and not feel bad about the possibility/inevitability of quitting when I so choose, if I so choose.
It just sucks to have been brought up in a world where none of this was taught, talked about, considered, validated, or anything. I lost my best friend to suicide in 2016, while living on the other side of the world, and I felt I could’ve done more. But our mutual friends in the same area didn’t stop it, and they felt they could’ve done more. Maybe there is no “more” or “less”, because that puts us as an external object from the universe. We can only ever really do whatever is possible due to the entirety of history informing each moment for us as “individuals” (what a concept…) – we didn’t actively decide to be attentive or absent friends. Or shitty partners, or abusers, or chronically ill. Circumstances beyond our control, informed by the same, shaped these things, and these too shape our decision to live or die every instant.
For now, because my current plan requires a bit of orchestration, I will not choose to die in this moment. No matter how much I do not want to be here, how much as I’m not looking forward to ending this day, and starting another one that will most likely play out the same, it is not the time. Not right now.
4 comments
I can feel your bitterness. I am in lost in darkness myself.
Regarding the Buddhism etc.. I’m afraid is a bit more profound than simply accepting a ‘bad karma’ one develops, be it in this or previous lives.
Actually you can ‘clean’ your karma and find your ‘inner’ Buddha.
It means we all have inside the potential to elevate ourselves to a better/enlightened state.
As an individual you have the power to create your own world according to what you think/feel.
I am not a scholar when dealing with religions etc, and yet I think we definitely affect/shape our own (mate)reality.
I can feel your anger and grief, I understand and more often than not in these last months I have been almost ready to end it then and there.
What buddhism states (if I am not mistaken) is that the work has to be done from inside out and not waiting for a sign from outside. That means rebuilding your own strength from inside to affect the external world.
Please regard this that I wrote not to contrast your opinion and bitterness which I can feel in your post. It is just my thoughts with the hope that you can let go of some of that darkness and emptiness inside.
BIG HUG
I had a Buddhist mentor for a few years, and the “life is suffering” thing is what kept me from converting. I think it’s letting existence off too easily. How is quality supposed to rise with that kind of complacency?
I frame my meager existence as seeking better, for me in the short term, for my family and genetics in the long term. In that better is reached, I win, and when it isn’t, I need to reassess. I reassess a lot.
Yet now I go about the thing with a bloody minded certainty. I will walk until I fall, then I will get up and walk some more. There is no more stopping that than the tides, or rains. I’m like that old commercial for batteries with the bunny; keep going, and going… clashing my meaningless symbols, yet somehow being a beacon of quality in a world of haphazard defects.
That’s my metaphysics anyway. I have enough dances with death to feel it will come sooner the less I think about it. I still think about it all the time, but less than I did, better than I was like I said.
I tend towards the position that we cannot know the ultimate nature of reality. We can guess, and our guesses may seem more or less reasonable. But we’re not in the position of being able to step outside of this world and see it as it really is. We’re part of it, dependent on it, conditioned by it. We see only what we’ve evolved to be able to see, rather than whatever’s actually there.
So yes, suffering does seem to be built into the natural world. Along with positive experience. My emotional instinct is that the potential suffering outweighs the potential for positive experience, but that could be purely based on my own neuroses. I’m not in the position to be able to weigh it all up and make an objective ruling on reality.
Why should this universe be geared to creating life? Maybe there’s a creator. Or maybe it’s just chance, and there are numerous other universes that are completely lifeless.
It does seem like some of those who get their minds in the right state are able to significantly reduce their experience of suffering. They still get sick, feel pain, and die, but the quality of the suffering is diminished, because their minds are not reacting to it in the same way. I suppose that’s the purpose of Buddhist practice (among others.) The greatest suffering is not from the pain itself, but from the mind’s reaction to it.
The universe does seem revolting, and horrifying, but also frequently beautiful (if you’re fortunate enough to see it that way.)
Like yourself, I tend to assume that we are causal beings, produced by the past. I do not know that to be true – it’s just the only way I have been able to make sense of my experiences. But it doesn’t really make me feel any better about the things I’ve done in the past, thinking I couldn’t have done otherwise. I am still who I am, whether I got here purely on my own steam, or the universe dragged me to this place kicking and screaming. The guilt is still there for my past actions, along with the concern for the potential impact of what I might do in future. I may be only able to do what I can do, but it still matters that I do it, and the state of my mind is still a crucial component in that chain of causation.
I don’t believe that suffering is inherent, but I do believe struggling is an inherent part of life. In a well balanced life there are struggles in between better happier times. However for some suffering and struggling are a constant. I also believe that humans are innately and inherently evil vicious creatures. No religion can help. There are a few who truly live an honest life, but most are just living a lie and prentending to be who they are not and as long as there are no consequences and no chance of getting caught they will act on their destructive cruel nature. Maybe consider that the majority of the world believes in some sort of religion and a god or gods. Religious teachings of all sorts generally have a common theme and that is to do the right thing, be kind, blah blah blah, if just a few people actually practiced the core teaching of any faith and religion – excluding the wide varying religious customs – the world would actually be a better place.