Something I find myself constantly faced with is a constant, silent nagging sensation. Not necessarily a feeling, just a faint little twinging in the back of my thoughts. It sometimes comes out during low points in my mood, and when nobody is around I find myself vocalizing the thoughts. "I just want to die." It's not exactly wrong, there are points where I do, but...what stops that?
See...I was at a freethinker meet, called Reasonate, which was this day-long event involving talks and discussions over the course of a day, local guest speakers, and generally the first attempt in the city of Madison for freethinkers [unitarians, atheists, agnostics, deists so on and so on] to come together and mingle since...well, chances are pretty good that meeting one by random chance isn't going to happen. Most people around here are nominally christian and while they are rarely ever devout, I've found in the couple instances where it's been discovered that I am an atheist that the reception towards me gets markedly chillier, so I tend to just dodge the subject if I'm trying to build some kind of rapport with people for whatever reason. The event concluded at a nightclub that is targeted more for those of alternative lifestyles; goths, sceners, BDSM fans, LGBTs and their allies, all that fun stuff. It's actually my favorite haunt. So anyway, I got into discussions with some members of the local Unitarian Universalist Church, one of whom was a deist, and, drunk, I admitted this to them, in my typical blunt fashion, and he pauses and asks me...
"If you truly want to, though...and you are unafraid of death...why don't you embrace it?"
This is a question that I myself have stumped myself on. Make no mistake. I don't entertain the idea for some sick pleasure, nor for the sake of attention. I've committed it on three different occasions without informing anyone and with genuine effort put into it each time. Once, I stopped myself [the last time] but the first two times I survived by "luck." Though I wouldn't call it that. One experience was particularly long-lasting and excruciatingly painful for the failure.
I THINK...I am not SURE but I THINK that I've come to enjoy the sensation of experience far more than the idea of blanking it out. I've learned in many ways to take the suffering and the aches and pains and stresses and find some way of enjoying them. There's some some subtle, underlying part of me that has begun to find some sort of thrill in even the worst experiences. Maybe it's just my survival instinct. Oooor maybe I'm turning into a masochist, I am not sure... Either way, when I am asked by those of religion why don't end it, or what stops me from X or Y, I find myself responding more and more with "because I enjoy this that I have, and the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of losing my life."
I get the impression I'm not alone in the overall point I'm trying to make [you know me, I love context].
An interesting side effect of all this is that the idea of hurting me with the truth being preferable over comforting me with a lie has become much more vindicated in my mind, because I have learned to take the worst and start learning to see the advantages to it. Used to be I was afraid of negativity in all of its forms because I was just so sick of it, but now...yeah, I am starting to see its benefits.
See...I was at a freethinker meet, called Reasonate, which was this day-long event involving talks and discussions over the course of a day, local guest speakers, and generally the first attempt in the city of Madison for freethinkers [unitarians, atheists, agnostics, deists so on and so on] to come together and mingle since...well, chances are pretty good that meeting one by random chance isn't going to happen. Most people around here are nominally christian and while they are rarely ever devout, I've found in the couple instances where it's been discovered that I am an atheist that the reception towards me gets markedly chillier, so I tend to just dodge the subject if I'm trying to build some kind of rapport with people for whatever reason. The event concluded at a nightclub that is targeted more for those of alternative lifestyles; goths, sceners, BDSM fans, LGBTs and their allies, all that fun stuff. It's actually my favorite haunt. So anyway, I got into discussions with some members of the local Unitarian Universalist Church, one of whom was a deist, and, drunk, I admitted this to them, in my typical blunt fashion, and he pauses and asks me...
"If you truly want to, though...and you are unafraid of death...why don't you embrace it?"
This is a question that I myself have stumped myself on. Make no mistake. I don't entertain the idea for some sick pleasure, nor for the sake of attention. I've committed it on three different occasions without informing anyone and with genuine effort put into it each time. Once, I stopped myself [the last time] but the first two times I survived by "luck." Though I wouldn't call it that. One experience was particularly long-lasting and excruciatingly painful for the failure.
I THINK...I am not SURE but I THINK that I've come to enjoy the sensation of experience far more than the idea of blanking it out. I've learned in many ways to take the suffering and the aches and pains and stresses and find some way of enjoying them. There's some some subtle, underlying part of me that has begun to find some sort of thrill in even the worst experiences. Maybe it's just my survival instinct. Oooor maybe I'm turning into a masochist, I am not sure... Either way, when I am asked by those of religion why don't end it, or what stops me from X or Y, I find myself responding more and more with "because I enjoy this that I have, and the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of losing my life."
I get the impression I'm not alone in the overall point I'm trying to make [you know me, I love context].
An interesting side effect of all this is that the idea of hurting me with the truth being preferable over comforting me with a lie has become much more vindicated in my mind, because I have learned to take the worst and start learning to see the advantages to it. Used to be I was afraid of negativity in all of its forms because I was just so sick of it, but now...yeah, I am starting to see its benefits.
