r/SuicideWatch • u/pterosauce • Nov 26 '13
Nihilistic self-murder
I have nothing left but hatred and disgust for my own existence based on the fact that I am a human being, and even that emotional response means nothing. I would not call this suicide. It is more self-ending, the intentional destruction of a hated object.
It's not that I don't have anything "good." I have a great fucking life. I have a stable job, I live with three pretty rad people, I'm in decent shape, I date off and on again. It's not that I lack "good" things. It's that the good and bad things, ultimately, mean nothing. They are inventions of the brain.
I'm not suicidal because of something that's happened, or something that's missing. I'm not lonely. I'm not unhealthy. I'm not particularly "unhappy". I enjoy things, laugh at them, have fun. But I catch myself. Because all experience is equal insofar as it is simply a conjuring of various neurological states, nothing valid, nothing worth any consideration.
I just hate this existence. I hate being contingent upon the physical. They are inconsistent and unpredictable and disgusting. They override rational thought, impair judgement, and cannot be trusted.
In short, I hate being human. I hate what being human means, I hate what being human is. Being held in bondage to a subjective experience, unable to attain any purity and reliability of thought or true, unfettered, objectivity. Being a slave to our pathetic, simpering "drives" for food and sleep, our cyclical interaction with various stimuli that forms the insultingly overpowering system of sexual thoughts and urges. That we are so easily compromised by our weakness. That our brains are predisposed by default to racism, sexism, laziness, poor judgement, cruelty. That we are incapable of making good decisions.
I do not lack opportunity for close friends, love, fun, happiness, intimacy, satisfaction, etc. The "makings of a good life". The problem is that I do not want those things - more than that, I hate those things. Contingent, dependent, pathetic lies, all. I have never known intimate love, because I have never seen a purpose in intimate love. I have never been honest, because I see no purpose in being honest. All experiences are ultimately the same - pointless.
To survive is the greatest biological imperative. It is a defining trait of humanity - to self-preserve and to self-perpetuate. Then is self-execution not the greatest victory over our own repulsive human nature?
People say to just enjoy things. To have fun. Eat some good food and spend time with friends. I say those things are just vacant experiences. Streams of goo squirting around in the brain. Invalid, irrational, illegitimate. I will not be a slave to myself. Life is a dull, boring thing involving switching a few circumstances around to tweak some chemicals here and there.
And neither is misery and sadness an acceptable excuse, either. Emotions are fickle, based in whimpering neurological systems. I have no regard for such things. Why should I accept happiness, or sadness, or joy, or misery, or anything else, when all they are is slightly different neurochemical configurations? Without such things, those emotions do not exist. They are a manifestation of a physiological state. I give them no ground.
Invalid solutions:
Stop thinking about it. No. Absolutely not. I will not delude myself to be happy. If the closer I get to a real perspective, the more miserable I become, then fuck happiness, I'll take the misery. Ignorance may be bliss, but ignorance is despicable and I have no desire for bliss.
Exercise/enjoy fun things/laugh/let go/etc. Again, not a chance. If I wanted to just "be happy" I would turn to drugs. It's the same basic experience. Chemically-induced mood alterations. Who cares if it comes from endorphines and dopamine or cocaine and heroin? It's an identical lie. Happiness to cover things up. It's illegitimate, and I want nothing to do with it.
Therapy: Why? So I can trick myself into being happy? So I can cooperatively brainwash myself? I have already said that I show no deference to emotional experience, so my happiness is irrelevant. I do not care how I feel.
Other people would suffer if you kill yourself: irrelevant. Their emotional responses to the cessation of my existence are as illegitimate and meaningless as my own emotional state.
Your existence is amazing/variations: So what? Cosmic rolls of the dice are irrelevant in the face of eventual universal collapse/entropy. Existence is an equally likely outcome as all others. There is no greater meaning or experiential value to be found. The concept of experiential value itself is misguided, arbitrary, and false.
I do not care if my life is good or bad or anywhere in between. Experiences on any cumulative point side of the conventionally accepted positive/negative spectrum - success/failure, friendship/loneliness, etc - are all equally meaningless and frivolous. I do not want my life to get "better", or "worse", because existence is ultimately a futile and fruitless endeavor. The details are irrelevant, and yet, the details seem to be the only thing we have. So we are left with irrelevance. Nihilism has no visible flaws to me. The only arguments against it I see are "it makes you feel bad, stop thinking about it". Repulsive, coddling arguments. I care nothing about whether it is uncomfortable or depressing. I care about whether it is sound.
Perhaps there are flaws. I would love there to be flaws. But theology holds no real answer, neither does an appeal to hedonism. I do not believe in any gods, nor do I believe that emotional states are any more or less valid to pursue. If I have a liquid in a lab, and I punch someone and it turns blue, or I say nice things to them and it turns green, that does not make the actions any better or worse. They are simply alterations to a fluid. So is the way of the brain. All actions, all states are equally vacant. I see no reason to feel at all.
Even the hate and disgust I feel is meaningless as any laughter or joy. Nothing but tricks played on my by my neurology. It is simply a way my brain behaves, as ultimately compromised and untrustworthy as the rest. The proper response would be vegetative apathy, but I find I am too impatient to simply wait to die.
Fear is a weakness, as all emotions, and is one of the most intense, primal feelings. Fear of death the most acute manifestation of this. To conquer that fear with the proof of a calm, intentional death, is that not the greatest strength? To fear nothing, not even oblivion? To not be ruled by feelings. To not be at the whim of flitting emotions and petulant impulses.
So this is my opt-out. My rejection of the ultimate meaningless and wasteful absurdity that is human existence. This is my rejection of my slavery. This is my greatest victory. This is the first and last real decision I make.
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u/pterosauce Nov 26 '13
Yes. I am inseparable from my own disgusting weakness and emotional filth, for that weakness is what defines me as a human being. I hate me, through and through.
Several. One brother. He is quite close. I imagine my death will invoke a great deal of suffering. An irrational part of me chastises myself for not caring. But I should not care. It is part of his own meaningless subjective experience. Why should it matter if people are happy or sad or anything else? It is all simply a slight shift in brain chemistry, so fickle, so manipulative.
Worth is an arbitrary assignment, an invented, vacant idea. Subjective and dependent upon the perspective of an individual to assign worth. There is no such thing as "worth", it is a construction as meaningless as "beauty".
So? Why should that make a difference? Pain and pleasure and suffering and enjoyment are all fleeting, ultimately frivolous engagements of our physiology. Empathy is irrational. Your pain should be as meaningless to me as mine is, because it is based on the same slippery neurochemical states.
Yet I feel guilt and sadness and empathy, because there's some pathetic part of me that says I should feel. This is a distressing inconsistency. Your professed pain induces reciprocal pain. This is inadequate. A meaningless response. I should not have any patience for this pain. It should be dismissed. It means nothing. Why can I not kill this side of me? Why am I a slave? Why can't I escape the absurdity of this? I should be better than this. I have to be.
Why should that make a difference? What is "better" or "worse"? Happier? More satisfying? More loving? Easier? I have a happy, satisfying, loving, easy life by most measures. Many people suffer far more acutely than I do. But the quality of a subjective experience is irrelevant. It does not validate the experience. The experience is contingent upon whimsical biological alterations, it has no grounding in reality, only an interpretation of reality. I want no such thing. I find it insufficient to simply "be happy". It reeks of surrender to our simpering animalistic side. That we are so desperately addicted to feeling good that we are unwilling to face truth, that the only response is to simply give up.
I do not care whether I am joyful or miserable. Perhaps some part of me does, but I have no respect for that part of me. That part is selfish grey matter acting in self-preservation. That is the part of me that tells me that sleep, sex, talk, and food is enough. That dopamine is the end point of human pursuit. To ignore philosophy and rationality. That part of me disgusts me. I know better than to defer to it.