Should I go?

It's positively heavenly. I don't feel paranoid any more. I watched some interviews of a musician I like on youtube. His philosophy is so much like my mate's...he said something I found fascinating: what's the point of worrying about death, it's going to happen no matter what you do.

In theory I understand that, but for me, death has a strong bearing on life. Death determines that there is a fixed point in the future and one has to accomplish all they want to and be the person they want to be before it. There's a ticking clock that will one day run out. I sure as hell haven't figured out what I want to do and be, let alone accomplished either. I expected I'd be dead by 30 (as did this musician). But he moved on and has had decades of happiness and success (and he doesn't equate success with money, but with kindness to others). He also doesn't believe bad experiences are necessarily negative. He doesn't think we're supposed to be happy all the time. He started to enjoy the mistakes or accidents and learn from them. These are the things my mate keeps mentioning that he learned from wise people, but somehow it's easier to believe them from someone outside your own circle. These people have a strong sense of self and their place in the world. They have found their own meaning.

TRIGGER WARNING**** death pondering below

I want to have the fortitude and zest for life I see so many people older than me have. I want to get beyond my cyclical and cynical brain that can't figure out a point to life or even a meaning worth creating and pursuing (considering that there is no absolute meaning to anything, including existence. It just is.). All I can think of is the sun's explosion or a meteorite abolishing most life on this planet. Then what of all our grand discoveries and inventions? Then what of having children to carry on your name (certainly not your memory after a couple of generations) or dna? In the end, I'm just molecules and atoms, a sophisticated but faulty machine and when I die what was me, mind, body, everything will decay.

I know I have to stop thinking this way, but I've been doing it since I was a small child (and that was back when I believed in a God and a heaven...or at least, I was led to believe they were real).

I know why most of the great artists killed themselves. I'm pretty sure they felt they had sucked most everything into their brain via the senses that was possible, they knew more was out there, the depths of the ocean, space, jungles, but they wouldn't be able to see and know it all even if they had a 1,000 years. The sadness that enveloped them, chemically led them down a spiral of "things will never get better, I've lived a good life, I've been an explorer, my work will go on, but I can't take the pain of this beautiful tragedy, this brilliant light of life and this outer darkness of eternal death." For the bipolars, who weren't dying of any bodily disease, they either killed themselves on a day when everything seemed perfect, like "life just couldn't get any better than this, and I want this to be my last memory." Or they did it on a day when they feared it would only get worse and worse.

I've had multiple experiences with both and came close, but reasoned myself out of each. I don't want to hurt anyone, although thinking about it's like, if it gets too bad, there's always a backup plan. A fire exit. It has nothing to do with one's loved ones, but I realize it would devastate them and they'd be asking over and over, "What did we do wrong? Why didn't she talk to us about it? We had no idea she was that depressed." And they would go through the stages of grief and wondering, "If I had just...then..." or "Why was she so selfish?" or "She had so much life left to live." Etc. Etc. I actually just thought of those responses off the top of my head. I've never fantasized what anyone would say if I did end my life. Weird.

But honestly, it's not about other people or revenge (true some adolescents do it after a breakup with a girlfriend or boyfriend, but I'm not referring to the out of the blue impulsive ones with no history of mental illness). Never has been...sometimes it's a way to get attention for those who are having a rough time, but never have any intention of succeeding. For me, I would either succeed or I wouldn't try at all. And no, I have no plan. What non-depressed or non-bipolar people need to know, especially if they've lost a loved one to suicide is that it wasn't their (the family or friends') fault. The person you loved was in intense amounts of pain and anguish. They felt it was the only way out...the only way to make the mental agony stop.

Of course it's not the only way to make pain stop, but when you're terribly depressed, you're not thinking straight. The whole "permanent solution to a temporary problem" has been beat to death. That's why we have hotlines and support groups and hospital ERs...because we will eventually pull out of it and may in fact go on to lead incredible lives with the right meds and therapy, diet, exercise, etc.

Again, tangent, sorry. You thought I was long-winded before I got sleep. See what happens.