The Slow Death

[Entropy]

Anyone ever wonder, if they are just suffering a slow death.

Rather then a quick one?

If they are burning slowly...

Instead of vaporizing in a flash?

I know its a melodromatic overly poetic grandiose way of putting it but hey... I have problems... right? Don't we all...

I feel like im dieing the slow way... the miserable way...

I dread going to sleep, knowing how much I like the loss of conciousness, the loss of my awareness of reality.

Even when I realize I am dreaming, I relish it, because I know it is just a dream, and I hide from that awareness as best as I can so as not to wake up, into the painfull, reality that is.

I feel no more pain when I am dreaming (no matter the dream, good or bad, nightmare or dream of heaven...), and sometimes, I wonder if my death will be like this a dream.

So I wake up later and later, and sleep more and more, and dread going to sleep because I know I won't wan't to wake up, because I know that even though I don't wan't to wake up I will, that I won't have a choice, and I will wake up and it will just be reality, pain again.

Mental pain, physical pain, its all irrelevent... its all pain... the pain of sucking in pollution, the pain of failure, the pain of being helpless, the pain of being alone, the pain of facing it over and over... there are so many painfull things... I can't hide from it, I can't delude myself by trying to blind myself, I can't list enough good things.... I know there's those very messed up evil ***#$#$#@ people out there who just say "Stop playing the negative tape, stop being weak, JUST THINK POSITIVE, JUST THINK WIN!, HAVE GOALS...." but its not real it doesn't exist for me, I try... I try like the spider trapped down a well with nothing to eat and drink, trying to get out and just slipping down the walls....

And I guess I will go to sleep again tonight, and tommorow will be another day... a day were I spend hours in traffic, to go no where, burning gas that millions wan't to fight over, burning life. I can't do anything about it, I can't eradicate evil from the earth, I have no right to be a holy "Paladin of the Cleansing Flame" about it... I can't force people to live in peace and harmony with nature... everywere I go is an affront to nature... I can't even find my peace and harmony with the universe myself... I can't stand at the cliffs edge and take the plunge, and eradicate my faulty genes from the pool... God forbid I ever reproduced and some-other being suffered imeasurably because I did...

Full of hate, and loathing, for myself, for everyone else, and there is no love, no beauty, no peace, no happiness, no flowers, and carebearisim here to keep me motivated. Just death, chaos, and pain. The pain that comes with drawing each breath, the pain that comes from looking at everyone else, the pain that comes from wanting what no-one can ever have. Happiness. The pain that comes from knowing you are always decieving yourself... and the pain that is caused by others always trying to decieve you.

The pain in you that comes from your own desire to march across the earth, the lord of undeath, full of destruction and wrath, for your soul you gave up so very long ago.

And I pray my athiest plea, in desperation to a god, that I know is not there, no matter how much, I wish they were, "God please end it all", "God end it now because if I get to you first its going to be worse for you god"... "God you had your chance, why didn't you take me then"... and here I am still alive...

 

[Luliby]

I can related to everything you wrote. I too have felt upon such dark moments that choosing life is really just choosing a slow and painful death. Afrter all, death is one of the constants in the universe that we can all know we will experience. That being said, what does it mean to live? What is the purpose of it and are we just here to suffer?

Paulo Coelho once said, "There is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for."

So lets talk about suffering. Suffering is the condition of one who experiences pain or distress, and suffering is itself a source of pain or distress. Emotional distress is a highly unpleasant emotional reaction. Reaction to what? There are different types of suffering, would you agree? There is the suffering of grief when we have lost someone close to us. There is the physical suffering of abuse and trauma, There is the suffering of defeats.

Lets talk about the suffering of defeats as that may be the most unclear but most common form of suffering in my opinion. It is wonderful when other people accept, appreciate and love us, and we should cherish those moments deep within our hearts. The pain comes when we expect to be treated a certain way, when we expect a certain response and we don't get it. Also when we expect at this time in our lives to be at a certain place, or we expect that we should be happy at least 70% of the time like other "normal" people. Think of what you want and expect things should be and compare it to what you currently have. THAT is the recipe for suffering defeat. There is an old proverb, where there is love there is pain.

Marcus Aurelius once said, "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." What does that mean? Lets say there is a woman you love and desire but she does not feel the same way about you as you do of her. You want her love but do not have it you are suffering over it. If you no longer want her love you no longer suffer over it. Lets say you expected to have a house, wife/husband, 2 stall garage, 2 children and the achievement of your career goals.. if you want this and do not have it you are suffering over it. If you never wanted it to begin with you would not suffer over it. Maybe you wanted to become a priest or monk and devote your life to that purpose.

On a very superficial level there is a common pain we all experience at one time or another, simple but to the point: When we smile at someone and they don't smile back, and this hurts our feelings what is going on? Them not smiling back says more about them than it does us, so why do we feel hurt? Because we have a conditioned response (belief) that people who smile back at us like us and people who don't smile back at us don't like us. Because we wanted and "needed" a certain response based on our past conditioning (belief) if we don't get that response the brain interprets this as hurt, pain or suffering. If you didn't want or need their approval or for them to like you then their not smiling back would NOT cause you suffering. You wouldn't care.

This is why some people believe you cannot avoid pain in life but you can avoid suffering. Marcel Proust once said, "We are healed of a suffering only by expressing it to the full." Which means if you are trying to avoid suffering then you cannot find a solution to it. For example, if the woman you love does not love you back and you are suffering, you continue to want her love and you continue to suffer. But emotional suffering is a highly unpleasant emotion and we don't want to feel it so in my opinion we focus even more on the thing we want so we can stop suffering. We believe that when we have what we want we will no longer experience this suffering. But that isn't true, is it. Haven't we all heard or know about people who achieved what they wanted and still felt empty afterwards? However, if you accept and feel the suffering, understand it as the natural reaction of loss and defeat, accept that your past conditioning belief that you MUST have her love is not a truth, but a belief. If you can do that you can move on and through suffering without getting too stuck in it.

James Russell Lowell once said, "Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle."

How you grasp and evaluate your situation will have an impact on how you feel about your situation. If your beliefs include "should" and "must" that is a good place to start and question WHY? Why should you be born with the ability to see and hear? Who pormised you would be born to a nice family and grow up in love and caring? What makes you believe that you should get laid before you graduate and at least have a significant relationship by age 25? Helen Keller once said, "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

No one promised us a rose garden of a life. It's not going to happen. And if you look over into your neighbors yard and see them living in a rose garden you may make the assumption they "have it all" when in fact their lives are a dry and cracked desert, thirsty and suffering, full of want. But that doesn't negate the fact that some people have it all. And it's not fair. But who told us it would be fair? These beliefs that we should have it and don't, and that life isn't fair are nothing more than a conditioned belief. We either get the message from commercialism which tell us the best and most worthwhile people drive a ferrari, have a beautiful home with wife and kids. Are famous and have great status and money. We can get these conditioned beliefs from our peers, "What, you haven't had sex yet? Everyone has sex before 18 didn't you know?" We can get these conditioned repsonses from our parents, perhaps not bringing home an A was underachievment. We can get these conditioned responses from our own experiences, " Whenever I smile at someone and they smile back they like me. The ones who don't smile back I've notriced don't like me." And then we turn the BELIEF into a TRUTH. So that ANYTIME someone doesn't smile back we belive they do not like us.

Why doesn't anyone ever say, "How come I wasn't born in Africa with aids to a poverty sricken family and have to take care of both my parents at age 8 because they are more sick than I am." "How come I wasn't born deaf and blind and mute?"

Helen Keller also once said, "The world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it." When you can accept the situation you are in, the condition you have and the place you have in this journey of life you can then transform it. Suffering has a great purpose as well as great pain. George Eliot once wrote, "Deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state." and Fritz Williams once said, "Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. ln those transparent moments we know other people's joys and sorrows, and we care about their concerns as if they were our own."

If you are in a physically abusive situation you should seek safety immediately. I don't want anyone to endure an environment of physical or emotional abuse. But if you belive you "must" endure it because of marrage vows, or because it's your parents, or for any reason then you will experience great suffering. When you understand that it's not a "must" or a "should", but a conditined belief, you will seek help.

The other part to suffering is if you believe it "can't be changed". Really question what you belive can't be changed. Is that a conditioned response like Pavlov's dogs or is it really and truely true. Depression is like this. Depression is a brain induced state of emotional suffering and you don't even have to have a reason or anything! And one of depressions main symptoms is a feeling of hopelessness. And when we feel hopelessness we have a conditined response to believe it is hopeless. But it's not a truth! Depression is curable and many people have recovered from it, you can too.

There are some things that cannot be changed and people have to live with that and it's not fair: like chronic pain, permanent injuries and illnesses, the past and any trauma's and abuse cannot be undone. The expression, "you can't unscramble scrambled eggs." applies here. Once the egg is cracked and whisked about in the fry'n pan you cannot put it back into the egg and hope to get a baby chick from it.

So, it's not so much a "positive attitude" as it is an honest one. Question what you believe, be free to redefine what "should" and "must" be. Accpet what cannot be changed and have the courage to change the things that can be changed. Think about what you "can" do not what you "can't". Think about what you "do" have not what you "don't".

Suffering happens. It's not fair and it's not always avoidable but the more we can accept and move past our conditioned responses and beliefs the less suffering we have to endure.

 

[Entropy]

In my inner being, if something is not fair, my inner self, my core of existance screams out and says "MAKE IT FAIR AT ALL COSTS"... I have a penchent for evening the odds and leveling the playing field. However some odds truely are too great, and it is the price I pay.

I am trying to acknowledge that suffering.

Does the poor kid with aids who is taking care of his dieing family stop suffering when he or she acknowledges that they are suffering because they think they should be a single 25 year old with money to go to colledge, and free health benefits?

Does that poor 25 year old stop suffering, when they realize they are suffering because no matter how kind, and compassionate they are, they could never stop the world from consisting of poor kids with aids and 25 year old colledge students helpless to do anything about it?

I am neither the poor kid or the colledge student. I see the delusion of happiness people have. I have realized, a wife, children, love, sex, or a ferrari will never stop me from suffering, or bring me happiness. This realization that I can not avoid suffering has ironicly and sadisticly seemed to increase the awareness of suffering that I have and brings about that feeling of hopelessness.

I know I must make myself suffer the worst of all. I would suffer worse if I tried to change myself. If I tried to live life the way I already disagree it should be lived. I do not wan't to capitalize on the suffering around me, and the suffering I create in order to delude myself that I am not suffering. I think no matter how much I suffer now, I will not suffer as much as the poor damned souls around me.

I wish I had the answer. I wish I knew how to stop suffering. I wish I could stop caring, stop wanting, stop needing. I wish I could stop thinking. For that I think I would need to stop existing.

So I still exist, and I still suffer, I know it will not stop.

Thanks, for your sage advice however, and I will come and read it a few more times, and try to see if I can surpass my suffering, if I haven't done the best that I can already. I believe everything you said and posted. I just don't know why I can not look up and be thankfull for the sun, and the moon, and the stars. Its as if they taunt me...

As it is, I am no angel with a halo, and wings, and I hate myself most of all for that.

 

[Entropy]

You are absolutely right lulliby I've heard it before, and I probly have said something similar to others myself...

But I wan't to sit here and scream, I know I will sleep well tonight at least. Ive stressed myself out enough, and I can look foward to that painless dream =)

Again, Thanks.