Probably my final post. I'm not trying to be cryptic or cagey. The facts are that I started drafting this post some time ago, undergoing numerous iterations and revisions, and had it always scheduled to publish on a future date. Sometime between the previous post and now – whenever now is now – I stopped being able to get on the internet to push the publishing date further into the future or do so after it went public, which I would if I could.
Actually, the initial purpose of this post was due to paranoia. For more than the past year and a half my computer would experience breakdown scares, performance and hardware issues, mysterious internet outages, and I think most can relate to that feeling of impotence and uncertainty not knowing when internet would be back up or if one's machine is about to die. I didn't want this blog to end silently (like so many do) just because I lost internet access. At least scheduling a final post in the future would give this blog closure.
So this post was published according to future schedule because something happened to prevent me from accessing internet. Maybe my laptop died or internet access catastrophically broke. Maybe it was a mundane fatal traffic accident or precipitous health collapse; my body catastrophically broke. I suppose falling into a coma or being taken into custody can't be completely discounted. That'd be quite a story. I wouldn't bet on my being whisked away from my miserable life, mesmerized by some young, rich beauty (preferably female) to live on an internet-less island in the south Pacific. Hope for it maybe, wouldn't bet on it.
Did I finally accomplish bringing chronic suicidal ideation to suicidal fruition and this is how I'm announcing it? Possible. Probably the better bet and who can blame me for doing it that way after decades of all talk and no walk?; crying wolf drowning in its own tears. Doing it this way gave me buffer to stop this post in case I failed again, but if I succeeded . . . well, here we are and presumably able to confirm my untimely demise (it should've happened much, much sooner).
Last will and testament?
- My hope is no one would be seriously bothered by this. After all, when it comes right down to it, my presence on this planet was pretty useless and meaningless in regards to anyone else, and I don't mean that in a negative way. It's just fact. While I was here, it didn't matter to anyone that I was here on a day-to-day basis, so if I'm not here why would it matter to anyone that I'm not here on a day-to-day basis? I'm not blaming anyone and I'll take responsibility for not mattering to anyone. If anyone's bothered, it's just a matter of time; getting over it and going on.
- If family sees this, I want this blog URL along with my name and dates on the family death monument just because I haven't found any evidence it's been done before and it'd be neat. More as a design element with personal meaning, not as something functional which would be silly (I think QR codes on tombstones are actually being used for that purpose).
- I guess this is where I'm supposed to thank people but I find I'm kinda at a loss. I mean it's not like my life was bereft of gratitude, I regularly felt thankful for breathing, for the sun without which none of this would be here, for fresh running water (albeit not the hot kind during winter), etc., etc.
But thank who and for what? If an enduring connection can be implied in a lifetime's gratitude, the fact is no one was with me in the end, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Musically. There's no one in my life so there's no one to receive any thanks I might have to express. Leave it to my life to make even gratitude complicated and convoluted. If gratitude is expressed in a forest and there's no one to hear it, should I leave a tip instead? Sure, throughout my life, in the past, there are plenty of people to thank in specific moments or for being who they were to me at particular times. Immense gratitude remembering them, but that expression is just for me, not them. They'll never know. Or rather they already do know because they were there.
Geez, what more can possibly point to my poor personality and likely unlikability than having no one to outright, unequivocally thank in the end? But that's perfect, that's exactly the way it should be. Regardless of my take on suicide or mitigation or justification of it, who wants to be thanked for a life that ended in suicide?! Thanks, I couldn't have done all this without you, *bang!*. I shouldn't even mention the identifiable current people for whom I have meager, albeit sincere, thanks because I don't know how it would be taken. Would it be an insult? Generate (totally unnecessary) guilt? Theoretically, my greatest thanks would be towards someone who really did understand the suicide and was even willing to drive me to do it (I mean literally, a ride would've made things soo much easier). My gratitude would be so great it would be karmic. But who needs more karma, more attachments? I'm trying to get rid of it.
My Razzie speech may be lacking in specific gratitude towards anyone, but at least I have a palpable general appreciation for everyone I've encountered and learned from and a better chance at no or little attachments.
Life assessment?
Well, a life with suicide (or "chronic suicidal ideation" if you want to be all psychiatric about it) at its core is likely going to be limited in its final assessment. Even with the characteristic of continually finding reasons to live on, there was still always the idea of not living past certain points in the future. There's only so much you can do when you live that way. That's the reason for my credo "Don't be something to someone and then disappear" and staying absent from people's lives. The effect goes from that grand, overarching statement down to simple stuff like never signing up for airline mileage plans, I'm sure I've mentioned before. Yes, that was an actual thought when I declined mileage plans; that's the extent it pervaded my decisions. Maybe sorta like that Christopher Nolan film Memento, except instead of not being able to create short-term memories, I can only envision a short-term future, unable to form a long-term one.
Given all that, I think I did alright. As early as high school, after being suicidal was realized but still in a primitive form (existential and philosophical underpinnings in place, but still emotionally volatile and reactionary), my stated goal in life was just to get a little bit of understanding about reality and the nature of life, just a glimpse, a hint. Flatter myself not, I think I've at least accomplished that modest goal. Granted I've lived a lot longer than I thought I would.
Suicide notwithstanding, I can say from the heart of my bottom that I've found life mind-blowingly incredible! And I mean despite all my contradictions, like I can't be disappointed because I lived a life of freedom and opportunity, yet I also lived a life of self-confinement and restrictions; my own prison. But all such decisions were my own . . . influenced by and dependent upon outside factors playing on my many psychological neuroses.
I can't say I was generally happy without either ignoring the obvious looking at my life or insisting I really don't know what that means, which . . . may or may not be true. I can't say I was unhappy without recognizing permeant joy immediately accessible in so many aspects of my life. Recognizing that happiness doesn't need to be dependent upon external conditions and is an internal, subjective state that can be cultivated also helps.
I can't say I was lonely without admitting I chased everyone away, and I can't say I was not lonely without . . . no wait, I can. I was never lonely. Ever. I was pretty good company, if only to myself.
I can't say I lived a particularly hard life without acknowledging the many advantages and comforts I enjoyed daily, and I can't say it was an easy life without giving a sarcastic smirk and rolling my eyes.
I can't say I lived a good life without realizing how little I've done for other people and I can't say I lived a bad life because . . . I simply didn't (so many burritos and pizzas, although not enough lasagna). I just don't see things that way.
I have no regrets how I lived my life, where should I start enumerating them?
For me life was incredible because of the internal search and affirmation that the path is real and worthy. Mindfulness practice I described before sounding like some kind of superpower, and in some ways I have to say it may be so! The core practice is sitting meditation and I have to admit the reality that much of that was unfocused mental wandering and distraction. Actually that doesn't matter, that's an aspect of the journey itself and is necessary for the moments where the mind settles and loses itself and there's full focus on the body as just a lump of metabolizing matter containing space and energies and becoming aware of them, and that's the stuff that's really, really interesting. And maybe all I got was a glimpse of it, just skimming the surface, but the thing about it is any little bit is pretty fulfilling and worthwhile.
I wouldn't trade the Vajrayana-inspired visualizations that occurred to me to try practicing for any sort of worldly travel or clichéd bucket list. Mandala practice suggesting better means of navigating the physical world around me and who I am in it as well as internal emotional landscapes. Dakini practice and awareness transforming sexual energies from the animalistic human to a potent spiritual connectivity, blurring gender separation, visualizing oneself as the other gender and the male-female union as a closed-circuit representation of the true whole electrified oneness of being. And of course the bardo practices of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, preparing for death but very importantly applying to life. It's not that I wouldn't trade those for anything, I probably would trade them for a better guide than myself through those things. Maybe next time.
epilogue?
I'm pretty sure I got this from a dharma talk on YouTube by Ajahn Brahm (who apparently having missed his chance to become a stand-up comic became a sit-down comic):
There was once a simple man, a successful merchant with a store, who was concerned about religious matters but unlike his business acumen he had little spiritual aptitude. When he visited some monks at a monastery, they told him the most basic practice to gain spiritual merit was to take refuge in the three jewels: I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the dharma, I take refuge in the sangha (the community of practitioners). He was told he must practice this diligently every day so that when he died the three jewels would be the last thing he thought of and that would surely lead to better rebirth. But because of his business even this he found difficult to remember to do every day.
When he and his wife started having children, he named his first son Buddha to constantly remind himself to take refuge in the Buddha. Then his next son he named Dharma and then a third he named Sangha. When the kids grew up, he kept them close and they joined him running the store which continued to thrive and sustained them well. For the whole of his life he was reminded every day by his sons' names to take refuge in the three jewels. Anything that happened with any of his sons he would remember to take refuge in the Buddha, the dharma and/or the sangha.
When he was old, one day he suddenly became very sick and was rushed to the hospital. There was nothing the doctors could do and when his children heard he was about to die they rushed to be with him. When the man saw his children he weakly thought, "Buddha . . . Dharma . . . Sangha, I take refuge in the three jewels". Suddenly his eyes widened and he exclaimed, "If you three are here, who's running the store?!" and then he died. 🤣
