I’m a healthy, well fed, non-homeless, American, white, male, with no real enemies, no rent, and no mortgage. I don’t even have a car payment, since I don’t have a car. And yet if it were not for my parents I’d totally 12 gauge myself, I wouldn’t even have to use my toes. (I’m 6’5” long arms.)
Now I recently lost my best friend. Not to cancer or a car wreck, but just a stupid girl. Why does this bother me so much? No one died. It’s not the end of the world, hell as far as things go it’s not even really a thing at all. I found out that I really didn’t know him. And he apparently really didn’t know me. Other than my parents I spent more time with this person than I did with any other human. And still no real lasting connection was made. What does this say about us as a species?
The reason this bothers me so much, so deeply and fundamentally is that it did not occur in a vacuum. This was not ‘our’ fault exclusively. This event and my emotional reaction to it are both indicative severe external social problems. One being monogamy, which I won’t get into here because that's a whole other paper. But generally things like pride, fear, insecurity, ignorance, oblivity.
There are two types of reasons for suicide. Intellectual and emotional.
My intellectual problem is this. I've spent my whole life trying to be kind. I've always had a deep desire to please. And on the whole society’s reaction to me has been poor. Every time I've gotten angry or greedy and acted impulsively because of it, I've prospered. Every time I've been kind and gentle or compassionate I've been harmed. My recent problem stems directly from two acts of kindness. I’m not here to talk smack so I won’t provide details. I would just like to comment on the commonalty here. We all know the phrase no good deed goes un punished, usually uttered as an ironic refrain. But really, what if that actually is the case?
What if reality doesn’t want us to be good to each other? Or at least has manifested in such a way that doing good results in a net drop in global pleasure. Strictly speaking part of what defines a good act is cost, so at least technically speaking, good acts are all punished instantly at least once. I’m beginning to think it is this way universally and here we have the root of my intellectual reasons for wanting to non-exist. If my choice is to be a torturous bastard, or to be a miserable one, I’d rather not play the game. It’s that simple.
Emotionally my problem is this. I’m suffering and I shouldn’t. Not as in I don’t deserve it (which I don’t) but like I explained in the first part of this essay my life is awesome, especially compared to the average inhabitant of this little dirtball. If all that doesn’t make me happy, what will? Sure I could go the Buddhist route and try to eliminate want, but that's not really a solution is it, that's like cutting your hands off to avoid arthritis. I mean isn’t merely not suffering the same as being dead? If I’m gunna end up dead I don't need to waste a couple decades praying first.
The meat is flawed. I have many things that brought me great pleasure when I acquired them but that pleasure faded with time. However I also have many memories which hurt me, and some are over 15 years old, and they still hurt me as much as they did. This is not right. If we don’t open ourselves up to the responsibility of physically changing our brains so that this is not the case, it’s going to become abundantly clear that there is no point in even trying to exist.
Either that or we should all live like Mongol invaders and really embrace Crowley’s “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”
I wish someone could give me hope beyond a distant transhumanist future. But if my best friends won’t why would any of you?
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