The odd thing about suicide is that it sometimes seems like a romantic end to a painful life. But if there was a single time in your life when something unexpectedly pleasant happened, it gave you a taste of hope that creates the doubt, no matter how little, that suicide may not be the answer. The fact is, we don’t know what the next moment brings, let alone tomorrow…although the trends of our lives may provide some predictability as to what to expect.
It’s when we dismiss the notions of hope, and worse, when we dismiss the opportunities of happiness that we succumb to our nihilistic tendencies to want to find comfort in the surety of knowing, rather than the insecurity of hope. Eventually when we’re faced with the possibility of happiness, we’re reminded about the pain associated with the retraction of that happiness from our last experience, or experiences, and in typically human fashion, we avoid that which hurts us, especially if that hurt is prompted by others rather than a hurt that we choose for ourselves.
I’ve stared death in the face more than once…and it’s not a pleasant place to be at all. It’s a conflicting place to be because no matter my conviction, my hard-wired survivalist instinct always left me uneasy about my choice to want to end my life, because in the back of my mind I knew that I was being insincere by denouncing the infinite possibilities that actually exist towards finding happiness.
But the greatest realisation in all this was, for me anyway, that my misery is often a making of my own choices. I’m not saying that I chose to be miserable…I always chose to pursue happiness, but the choices I made in such a pursuit had an inherent risk of making me the target of betrayal, condescension, ridicule or just blatant cruelty, not because of who I was, but because of who I sought such happiness with. I saw my fragility and vulnerability in them, and so naively assumed that they would appreciate me appreciating that tenderness in them…instead, as is the nature of those that are insecure or overwhelmed, they struck back blindingly because the realisation of their vulnerability being exposed was too daunting for them, and so the trend of their lives that taught them not to trust resulted in me being the untrusted one.
I didn’t choose that outcome, but I did choose to risk trying to connect with a troubled soul knowing that they may not embrace me the way I was wanting to embrace them. And in knowing that I am myself a troubled soul, my naivete, coupled with my unnatural idealistic optimism compels me to continue wanting to touch the beauty that I always see lurking behind the sad eyes of kindred spirits, having absolutely no reason to believe that they would reciprocate…ever.