The Existential Dilemma: Part Two- The Existential Crisis

[Elizabeth (imported)]

Ok, I admit it, I had an existential crisis. This happens when the need to exist is not outweighed by the need to not exist. In my last post no one really addressed that question, is it preferable to exist as opposed to not existing? I reached a point in my life where I dreaded each new day and something happened to me. I realized that I did not have to go on dreading each new day. There was no penalty for ending the game early.

One hundred years after I die, everyone that knew me personally will be dead. It’s unlikely anyone will ever speak of me again, unless perhaps someone does some kind of family tree thing, but it won’t matter at that point because it will all be anecdotal anyway. As time goes on my existence will be erased from the earth. So if I die now or twenty years from now is of no consequence in the overall scope of the universe and it’s decay and expansion. I mean, I don’t remember waiting the fourteen billion years of our universe before I became sentient, so not existing did not seem to bother me.

So I decided to go back to not existing. Well, I make it sound so easy. After fantasizing about killing myself daily for over fourteen years, I decided to give it a try. Which I did, but failed to complete the job. There is nothing more humiliating than attempting suicide and failing. Then one has to hear all that “it’s a cry for help” crap. I mean, what kind of loser can’t even kill herself? And one always hears “well if they really wanted to kill themselves they would have put a gun to their head”. In any event, I ended up not experiencing, not existing. Not existing again, that is.

Mitchell Heisman wrote Suicide Note, a nine hundred and four page paper, that in great detail and well referenced, laid out this case for not existing vs existing being equal. It is a well reasoned paper and it becomes painfully obvious early on that he is going to need to kill himself to prove his main thesis. Which he promptly does on the stairs of the church at Harvard University, by putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger, after completing the paper and posting it online.

Interestingly, my children and best friend both displayed great trepidation in hearing my intent to read Suicide Note, fearing it might lead me down a dark nihilistic road to a depression laced suicide myself. Here was an example of the existentialist’s dilemma in action and how it leads to death by one’s own hand. This is the fear! Losing the desire to continue this struggle we call life because there is just simply no reason to continue it.

If no one will even remember existing, then why is longevity so important to everyone? Is it just a meme we can not break?

To be continued

Elizabeth

[gunnutz (imported)]

Accepting the premise that there is no god or afterlife.

The penalty for ending the game early is that the game is over, you no longer exist and that is a steep penalty not just for you but for everyone around you.

Given the level of record keeping today and the obsessive nature of genealogists I think it is incorrect to think that all records of you will be erased in 100 years. You can argue that no one can really know if whats written about you is true, the fact remains that some trace of you will remain.

Heck get your name listed in a newspaper once and dying will probably get you there and BAM you're on microfilm, or maybe just stored on a hard drive or magnetic tape somewhere, there it is an enduring trace of you.

Existing and not existing are not equal you can cease to exist but you cannot come back it's a one way trip.

[butterflyjack (imported)]

Elizabeth...Do you suffer from any sort of depression? You seem to have lost your zest for life...assuming you had a "zest". I have similar thoughts..But never to the point of suicide contemplation..I find raison d'etre in everyday things...and the interaction between myself and equals..I love people. And I love food, and the preparation thereof.

I'm 67 years old and still having fun..I take deep breaths and revel in the wonderment of nature...But, like you, it doesn't take much to drag me down..I need daily affirmation of worth. I find volunteering and simple physical tasks, and cooking to reinforce that self worth..Be well Jackie

[janekane (imported)]

I suppose, were I to be capable of actually believing that I could, through any actually, demonstrably, achievable process, ever done anything in any way at all better than I did it, I suppose despair might be able to touch, and even, perhaps, also, grasp me.

However many times someone has told me that it would have been better had I done something differently, I have become vividly and consciously aware of that telling be a telling of what is impossible.

Perhaps because my life is firmly grounded in the direct observation that, the way my body, including my entire nervous system works, there has never been any action or choice I have ever made which I could have made in any even infinitesimally better way.

Because it is always vividly clear to me that neither I nor anyone else can ever do anything better than the way it is done, I seem to have acquired a form of immunity to despair and its effects. Sadness, I know well; I expect sadness and grief to take the form my life situation of the moment requires.

I live and die without leaving a trace on the mythic sands of time? Perfect!

I live and die, and, having totally messed up my life so that I get an infinity of eternities gnashing my teeth in hellish, unending torment? Perfect!

I live and die and come back reincarnated as whatever? Perfect!

I have never existed and never will exist? Perfect!

I live for decades in a "locked-in" state, unable to communicate in any useful way, and in far worse than unbearably excruciating pain? Perfect!

My life circumstances so break me that my only way to find mercy is suicide? Perfect!

As I find that I have no need to live, so I also find that I have no need to not live.

I have no responsibilities; as the events of my life happen, I happen to learn of my response abilities to the events of my life.

I have no wants because my needs are always met, because I choose to interpret whatever happens as meeting some need in my life, no matter what happens.

This approach has worked for me before I was born, while I was being born, and ever since.

Were I to be more grateful for one aspect of life more than the rest of life, I would be more grateful for being autistic than for everything else.

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

At this point, my question would be what good is it to even believe these things if they make your very existence miserable?

Again, I just don't see it. There's so many things that we can enjoy and be joyful about. Has it really reached such a point that you don't see ANY reason to keep existing and enjoy the short time that you have? There's so many things you can go see, so many experiences you can have, so many things you can try. Even if it's ultimately pointless, who cares? It's enjoyable.

If you're stuck in a miserable life circumstance, maybe it's just time for a change. Life shouldn't be like that.