From: llama@tramp.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine)
Newsgroups: alt.suicide.holiday,alt.angst
Subject: Re: My contribution....
Date: 17 Dec 92 04:15:31 GMT
Followup-To: alt.suicide.holiday
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Lucifuge (ogorman@unix1.tcd.ie) wrote:

: ....to the festive spirit:
: 
: There is no hope. Kill yourself now.

i've been thinking about this one a lot in the last couple of days.
why in the hell am i still alive? for that matter, why didn't the
whole human race collectively jump off a cliff years ago? is masochism
a dominant x-linked trait?

sometimes i feel like such a fraud. i look at my way of living and
think i've got it figured out, that the things i value are the
"proper" things to want.  then i listen to someone else defending his
way of life and reallize that my choices are all subjective, that i'm
no more clued in than anyone else.

still, if i wanted to give in and just quit, i've got ample reason. i
could justify it a zillion different ways (no gory details; besides,
i've posted about a lot of it). so why didn't i do it? why did i tell
jesse i was going to visit my (dead) brother last march, knowing he'd
call in the troops and take me to have my stomach cleaned? it was
there, in my grasp, i had the pills swallowed already, enough to do
it, and i wimped out. the request for help was convoluted, but
definitely an act of self-preservation.

it would be pleasing to the narrative if i could say i had some
revelation as i was slowly spacing out on the drugs, some cosmic thing
that showed me there was a meaning to it all and that caused me to
change my mind. but i didn't; the act of getting help was almost as
automatic as the act of taking the pills had been. i wasn't
despairing, wasn't upset; it was a mechanical thing, two pills,
swallow of water, two more... i relinquished all control and gave up
all my choices. not having to decide anymore: how blissful. dutifully
swallowing ipecac, dutifully puking my guts out, observing it all from
a distance, feeling like my head was floating about a foot above my
shoulders.

so why am i still here? i know the dosage now, and the drug is
commonly available otc.

this, of course, could be a cue to get sentimental: if i died, i'd
never kiss a man again, never feel another body on top of mine, never
cry at a movie or laugh at a joke or dance to a song in sheer manic
joy. but that's not really it.

it's just that sometimes, when i'm in the right mood and there's no
one around and my thoughts have arranged themselves in neat little
rows before intricately dropping into fantastic patterns, everything
falls into place. it all makes sense and i can accept the unfairness
and the dirtiness and the basic scum that clings to me at the end of
every day i spend as a member of this godforsaken society. i don't
care how i look or how i sound or who reads what i say or what they
think. everything becomes sharp, clear, focused on *knowing*, and
the knowledge is of a sort that can't be spoken. a deep feeling of
unity, rightness, of knowing that the path i'm on is the one i need
and the things i'm feeling have real meaning, significance beyond my
futile attempts to order them. epiphanies. moments of breathtaking
insight, like suddenly inhaling a lungful of freezing air. moments of
certainty.

i quite literally live for those moments, and try to keep myself
amused in the between-times.

--
sine | deb
vaguely buzzed and making little sense.
"and now you realize sometimes you just gotta let love pass you by
 and watch the world go around and it's all right" -- love and rockets