The trouble with the 'God' word is...

.. that no one ever discusses what it might mean to each person who uses it. Richard Dawkins derides religion (in my opinion, quite rightly), but he never asks what people mean by the word 'God', which is daft as this is what underpins the existence of religion. Albert Einstein reportedly believed in God, but I daresay his concept of God was rather different from that of some politicised American right winger who thinks the planet is 4000 years old.

I posted something else on here a few nights ago but can't find it.. could we have a 'my posts' list please?

Anyway, whether or not anyone should decide to commit suicide.. all sorts of thoughts pass through one's mind. The implications for those left behind for example. But for you as an individual, there's a more fundamental question. What happens afterwards? If anything. I ponder this question a lot. I contemplate suicide, but what's stopped me are my teenage sons, and a realisation that I don't have a sufficiently coherent knowledge of what happens after I die.

We all elect to believe in one or other of the standard strands of thought... there isn't anything, or there's some variant of afterlife... but no one actually knows of course. And, being of a scientific bent myself, I'm suspicious of perspectives based on mere faith.

But that's not to say that empirical evidence for any phenomena is the only valid form of evidence. If we ponder these questions, in my experience anyway, an intuitive understanding of the true nature of things starts to appear. But it's never a perspective that's communicable. It's a sort of internal understanding of the nature of things that can't be described.

It's a very private and personal thing. Even if you want to communicate it, you can't.

If you've ever experienced such a degree of perception - and it's a very quiet and gentle thing - then hold onto it. Don't make the mistake of disparaging it because it's not mainstream. Have faith in your quiet, personal insights. You just may be plugging into something much bigger than the machine that seems to be defeating you.

How you map this insight to a practical way forward in life is a different question. And it's one I'm wrestling with now. Unemployed and seeking isn't a good combination. But you're not alone. Think about what the world needs and where it needs good and wise effort. Exploding population, climate change, failing and corrupt economic systems et al. See how much opportunity there is for good work in this maelstrom.

Easy to say I know. I'm struggling, and haven't found a way yet, hence my presence on here. But at least such a perspective provides a framework to compare yourself against. Perhaps the problem is one of your perception of yourself and of your personal value. Seeing a world that doesn't make sense and being unable to find a you-shaped slot in it.

But there's so much need... it's not you that has the wrong perspective, it's the way the world is being run that's wrong, and perhaps that's why you can't see a place for you. This isn't you fault. This requires you, and your courage and conviction, to rise up and be something new. Maybe that's why you're here. Maybe the God thing, be it an entity or a universal force, or a reflection of just what is, requires you to be in order for it to move forward. Maybe you have, in fact, a greater purpose than those around you who seem happy but whose apparent happiness is based upon illusory material stuff. Maybe you belong to a purer breed... one with an intuitive insight.

Maybe. Ponder. Perhaps there's solace and a reason for being available to you in that pondering. That reflection on truth.

And remember, what's past can't influence what's happening now (it's already done its damage), and what's to come can only be imagined.

And if you live in Warwickshire and want to get hammered in company, let me know.

 

I don't know. I write this stuff, but I'm still sat here staring into my vodka a coke and listening to loud music, weeping too easily at certain FB threads and stories, and listening to the silence. I'm just scrambling about looking for a resoned solution, that's all. Al I wanted to do was to do work that justified the term 'earned', rather than 'made'. Not too much to ask for. Well, maybe a balmy Medierranean climate thrown in. [was brought up in the tropics]. A quiet, deep and gentle female companion would be nice. Not so much you see. Pretty normal really. Why so hard to find?

 

If you consider the slums of Jakarta or Nairobi or Mumbai, or the murderous crime amongst innocent poor people in the suburbs of Rio, or indeed the struggles of ordinary people in Greece, or even the ignorance and extremities of our own [UK] poor areas [previously known as slums], and the obscene inequity of distribution of wealth [the top 10% in wealth terms earn 280 times the bottom 10% in the UK. It's worse in the US], then perhaps you or I have little to complain about, unless you belong, as I now do, to that bottom 10%, in which case be righteously outraged.

But that's not how it works is it? It's the fact that these things are that drives my view of the world, and my sense of failing at playing a productive role. I personally have a particularly global perspective on this, and so the climate issue, and other related causative or consequential issues, play a huge part in contributing to my sense of inadequacy, and my desire for how I earn my living to to be of real value. I don't think I can survive unless I believe that my function and place and identity is allied with this understanding.

 

If my life seems meaningless.... Actually let me start this again. It isn't meaningless, because I have two fine sons who seem happy and have much greater potential for making happy lives for themselves than I seem to have achieved. So I do have a reason to be here.. to help them and to take pleasure in their happiness and success. So why am I even contemplating suicide? It's because these real and true and fundamental aspects of my life are not the ones that drive the everyday things that I have to live by. It doesn't matter how happy my sons are, if I can't pay the damn rent. On the one level, I'm a wealthy man.... I'm a good father with sons who are on the road to fulfilment [one as a doctor, and the other as a palaeontologist] and I have given of myself to help them achieve this. But on the other hand, I wake every morning in a sweat, unemployed and broke, despite 30 years experience, two degrees and a brain. So what is it about me that doesn't match what the world that's racing by needs in it's competitors? I lack a need to compete perhaps? Yes, on the 'my beemer's bigger than yours' front anyway. What else? I don't know. I just don't know. I don't get the rules. Here's the problem. I don't know how to play the game. And what of it that I do know, I don't like.
So my life is meaningless. It's meaningless in any way that is useful in the way the world outside the way my mind and heart works, and yet it isn't meaningless in the a number of ways that actually matter. The conundrum is how to find a purpose in the big world, that seamlessly accommodates my place in the small one? The one that I love and is good. How to make the big one good as well, rather than subsuming the small one to the big?

 

It's the lack of power that's the killer.

Consider what you imagine might be your ideal life. Discard all constraints and imagine your perfect life.

Now throw off the silly things. See your ideal life in layers. Like a pyramid. Some things [the top layers] are just fantasy. That's ok. The bottom layers aren't good though. Where are you? At the bottom, at some intermediate layer? Nearer the bottom than the top? What is it that you're sitting on that raises you up from the bottom? If anything. What are the layers that sit between you and the top?

Chances are you have little or no power to influence those layers above you. Perhaps you did once and you screwed up. Maybe you could be a concert pianist after all, if you put your mind to it. Or perhaps you don't want to play this game anyway, and see life differently. But the human world works this way. You may be the most gifted person, and yet your gifts don't lend themselves to scaling the sides of the hierarchical pyramid that society presents to you. Perhaps you're just not a player. You seem to be inappropriate to your circumstances.

If so, this isn't your fault. It's because our society places such stringent parameters on what is acceptable and useful, and what is not. And all too often, these parameters are defined by an economic model that simply doesn't allow for people to simply be people.

If you had the power, you'd make a world that let you be you and be appreciated for being so. It's not your fault that things aren't so. So go easy on yourself. Be proud, rather than cowed.

 

I'm no near understanding why I feel so exhausted by everyday life, and why I just want it to stop. I don't like it, and don't want it, and don't know how to do it. I don't get where the values lie, and too much of it all just seems wrong to me. I don't get why I'm so alone. Nor why I like being alone [what is it about people that is so disruptive?]. Why am I able to sit at the bar and be the life and soul, only to return home and cry tears at the sadness of everything? Why, if I understand the oneness of everything as is made of wave/particulate form, am I so subject to the illusion?

 

interesting [to me at least] that I started this thread talking about 'you' and ended talk about 'I/me'. Conversation with myself of course, as usual. Probably do the same thing tomorrow. Hope it at least gave you food for thought.

 

I found a lot of what you said interesting; I have been contemplating suicide for the past few days; don't know why I haven't yet; don't even understand why I want to do it; I just know that I am tired of crying and feeling hopeless and useless

 

Hi Antelope, I'm not going to try to convince you if there is a God, the only thing I know for certain is that most (if not all) people wanting to end their lives are hopeless.

I have found that believing in God (in any religion) gives you hope in many ways and fills your heart and soul, which otherwise would feel empty.

God bless you.