Call Me Klaatu

Call Me Klaatu.  Why?  I'll tell you later.




I think I'll skip my rant about life, my life, all human life, the existence of the planet and the universe all being meaningless.  You can read it elsewhere here.  But the bottom line is this: life is meaningless, humans are parasites, only those humans who can demonstrate (to themselves) a good reason for living should do so.  That's how I see it.


Knowing it's repeated many times here already, I'll also skip my opinion about (all) religion and the afterlife.  I see life becoming death as a light switch being thrown.  One moment your consciousness, all you are and ever have been, exists.  The next you cease to be, to have ever been.  You don't go to heaven or get reincarnated.  You disappear.  There is no "you."  Unless the matter that was your body drifts to some other place someday where it combines with other matter to become another entity, nothing of you will ever matter (pun intended) again. 


=====================================


Some aspects of nature fascinate me.  I don't mean an anthropomorphized "Mother Nature."  I simply mean nature that's all around us.


The purpose of every creature is to reproduce, to pass along to the next generation its unique genetic contribution.  


And every creature is programmed to survive, at least until it has progeny.  Having spawned, the salmon lie there and die.  The male  spider of many species, while he would rather avoid this fate, risks that his mate will eat him after mating to provide food to sustain her through her pregnancy.


The "avoid this fate" part is the one that really gets me.  Unless given unique programming (see "salmon" and "male black widow spider" above), all creatures want desperately to stay alive forever.  This makes perfect sense in an ecologically-balanced world, where predators prey on the sick and the weak.  An old wildebeest provides a nice meal to the big cats that hunt it.  And (forgive me if my recollection of ecology class fails me) the "carrying capacity" of the biosphere is such that the planet can sustain all the life on the planet.  


Except us.  We consume tremendously more than we produce.


As life forms go, man is a parasite on this Earth.


Once we have reproduced (or decided not to), I think we should do the right thing and go the way of the salmon.  I propose a new slogan for environmentalists to use: "Got kids?  Think globally.  Act locally.  Hang yourself."


o o o


About Assumptions
--------------------------
Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.
Alan Alda


Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.
Marshall McLuhan


The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.
John W. Gardner


“If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance”
 Orville Wright


o o o


The problem is that we have bad assumptions
It might have been better if you had died before now.  It's entirely possible.  Or maybe not.  It's not up to me to say.  I'll give you some ideas.  Consider them or not.  It's entirely up to you.


One thing I *will* say is that the decision whether to be alive or not is also entirely up to you.  It's not up to society to say.  Not the government.  Not your religion.  Not your friends or family.  You know this intellectually, of course, but your emotional attitude has been shaped by those other influences.  I don't say your decision will be an easy one, but I'll attempt to bring some clarity to it.  And, again, that decision will be entirely yours.


o o o


The problem is that the premise is wrong.  The precepts are wrong.  The paradigm, the model is wrong.  It's impossible to get good answers when you start with bad assumptions.


Computer people have an abbreviation for that concept, "G. I. G. O."  It stands for "Garbage in, garbage out."


In "the West," there has been an integration of Judeo-Christian religions with society's laws and attitudes.  I can only speak about those faiths. While I don't know very much about them, I know even less about the others.  What I *do* know is that each doctrine or dogma, every commandment, any good idea that God or His prophets suggested, it's a part of how our society operates.


I've got a hypothetical for you.  What if all those ideas came NOT from God but from the prophets responsible for writing the Bible, mere fallible mortal men.  I'm not arguing against religion, at least not yet, but I disagree with some of the rules by which we live.  I believe living by those rules has caused an extraordinary amount of unnecessary suffering and I propose to change some of them.  Later I will ask your help to make those changes a reality.  Let's see if I can convince you.


One thing that is "cast in stone" is the way society views death.  I'm not just talking about the ethical quagmire of whether to offer euthanasia to very sick people.  It is rooted in the problem I want to solve. I'm talking about changing fundamentally the way each of us views death.


o o o


[Have you heard about the next generation program to replace Cash for Clunkers, Grand for Grandma.  NOT death panels, but the Wile E. Coyote death slingshot.  Maybe offer them a ripcord they can pull.]


"If all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you do it, too?"


Well, there are a few things wrong with this classic lesson in parenting.  First, I had no friends, so peer pressure wasn't much of an issue.  Sure, I observed what the other kids were doing, but my parents did my shopping for me, so I was no slave to fashion, unless it was to *their* fashion.  I followed no fads.


Second, if I were asked the question as a child, I would give an entirely different answer than expected.  I would have said, "If I found so enlightened a group of people, I might have invited them to dance with me for a few minutes, to celebrate our deliverance, before we all jumped."  These days, my answer would be the same, except I'd say, "I might have invited them to dance with this failing body for a few minutes."


o o o


I might be wrong about this, but I think we've had this conversation more than once.


I mention "leaving" or "going away" and you ask if I mean walking out the door or killing myself.  Then I say, "I have nowhere to go," indicating I mean to end my life. You simply need to understand I don't want to scare you by saying outright "kill myself," "take my own life," or "commit suicide."  That's loaded language, full of meanings you don't want to hear.  What's also true is that I don't define the act in those words.  I don't see it as a negative, a bad thing.  I see it as a good thing,"leave" or "exit" or "find deliverance" or "end the pain."  


You've probably realized that either I'm very bright or think I am.  I've come to conclusions about some things that may be right (even "insightful") or may be entirely incorrect, based on thoughts in isolation, without the benefit of input from others.


I see life as an accident, an illusion, a trick.  A temporary arrangement of atoms into a configuration that lives for a brief time before returning to their normal state of being, floating through the universe.  I don't see human life as "sacred" or "holy."  I don't see the "soul" as being immortal.  I don't see the existence of Heaven, Paradise, Reincarnation or any other afterlife myth as being possible.  I see those ideas as being the lies inculcated into our children (perhaps without knowing any better) by parents, pastors, teachers, and other figures of authority to support both existing churches and the political entities.  I see religion as a way of exercising control over the masses.  "The meek will inherit the Earth," indeed.  The meek will not rise up and overthrow the State, the landowners, the powerful.  There is pie in the sky folks, plus you'll never die if you stay submissive.


"Thou shalt not kill" other humans, but those who don't believe in our particular version of God aren't quite human, are they?  Infidels and heathens can be killed with impunity -- in fact, "God is on our side" doing so.


It is the height of conceit to believe man is superior to any other life form on the Earth.  The notion that "Man has dominion over the Earth" has been working really well, hasn't it?  The Earth is dying, both from abuse and from overuse.  Man is a crappy caretaker.


So the question is one of when to end this life, to return to the state that is inevitable for us all.  I have a rather lengthy answer to the question, but I will attempt to sum it up here.  Leaving God out of it, but accepting Nature as having an intention of us all, I see us as having the same two imperatives as any other living being: reproduce and live forever.  "Reproduce" so that our unique genetic contribution is carried forward to the next generation(s).  "Live forever" so animals higher on the food chain can survive by eating us when we grow old and sickly.  Once you have reproduced (or chose not to), your only important job is done.  The way the world is structured, those of us in the "first world" don't dies except by "natural causes."  In fact, we are prevented from dying by doctors and our families' wishes.  This costs society nearly unlimited money and goes contrary to what I believe makes sense.


Unless you have a good reason to live (and I'll let you decide your own "good reasons"), I suggest you choose to die as soon as you have reproduced.  Irrespective of the resources you use while dying, you use tremendous resources while simply living.  The Earth would be a far better place if you weren't a parasitical life form on it.  Go now.  Wave good-bye if you like, but simply die today.


The "good reasons" might be that you want to help raise your family, or you love somebody, or you are passionately involved in some activity you value, either mental or physical.  As it happens, none of those are true for me, but I don't see the value of such things for anyone overweighing the preservation of the planet.  Your actual mileage may vary, as they say, so perhaps you do.  I don't say a "death panel" should be empowered to tell (or force) you to die -- at least not yet -- but I say society should be in the business of conveying the reality that death is a good thing, not something to be avoided at all costs.  If that flies in the face of your religion, it's OK with me.


o o o


I dare you to read 5 pages.  That sounds childish, doesn't it?  Most people will want to stop as soon as they read the subject.  I don't blame you, but I'd like you to read my argument before you walk away.


You've been taught by society what I'm saying is a sin, if not a crime.  I disagree.  I'm not suggesting you deprive anybody of their life, liberty or property.  I'm asking you to make a decision for yourself.


Don't simply react.  See if what I'm saying makes any sense.  It might not but be thoughtful.  Have an open mind.  Can you do that?


Okay, here goes.  "Every thinking adult should decide when the time is right to commit suicide and then do it."


Still with me?  All the beliefs you have about life came from your parents, teachers, preachers, and other authority figures.  You are a product of where you were born and the community that was around you during your formative years.  Everybody is.  Each of us is the sum of our experiences.  The problem is:  What if some of the things we learned aren't true?


Let's start by answering some of the great mysteries of life: "Why am I here?"  "What is my purpose in life?" and "What happens when I die?"


"Why am I here," of course, has the same two answers as every question.  It's either random chance or God.  The "God" answer has the advantage of providing a simple solution to any problem.  God knows that it's God's will that God works in mysterious ways, gosh darn it.  There is something very comforting about being able to reach deep down inside oneself and pull out a universal answer.  "Why did somebody die?"  God's will.  What do insurance companies call natural disasters so they can avoid paying for damages?  "Acts of God."  Who blesses the United States of America?  God.  In God We Trust.


I admit to being a "devout atheist" (a term I use for the irony).  That fact alone doesn't invalidate my argument, but (again) you'll need to keep an open mind to keep reading.


o o o


Should you be alive?


Seriously.


There was a movie I really liked several years ago called "Defending Your Life."  Albert Brooks & Meryl Streep in a sweet romantic comedy set in a stopping point on the way to heaven.  The premise was that a dead people would present videos of moments from their lives before a panel of judges while their advocates (attorneys) explaining that the videos showed them doing heroic things.


focus on attys
I'm going to start by breaking some rules, not the least of which is that authors don't speak directly with readers.  But I have to do it.


What I *could* do in this book is present (in a very dry, academic style) a thoroughly researched set of facts that reveal some "truth."  That's called "expository prose" and would be entirely appropriate for this non-fiction work.


And let me interrupt myself to say I am *no* academic.  While my subject matter here is serious, I am (by avocation, at least) a stand up comedian.  I write and say funny things.  Let me give you an example.


If you don't want to do all the work to write expository prose, you can, instead, state unsupported assumptions.  Something like "Suppose this or that is true."  I call that style of writing "suppository prose."  It has the advantage of getting the stuff on paper faster.


If the above wasn't in the slightest bit funny (or vulgar), it may be that you're not a 21st century American.  You may not have the same language background I do.  I wrote this book for Americans raised in the Judeo-Christian faiths.  Now, if that isn't you, don't despair. The things to be learned will be accessible, but they may require a bit more study to understand.  You'll see as you go along.


I'm in a bit of a quarry.  Most people would say "a quandary," but I like to use "quarry" when I'm between a rock and a hard place.  This, too, is word play and hard for me to suppress.


My problem is in how to present my case.  There have been a limitless number of statements made by esteemed experts that support what I say.  The only problem is that each expert has a slightly different read on the situation.  Let me give you an example.  If I say, "A tremendous amount of money, almost always from MediCare and private insurance, is spent on people during the last few months of their lives." nobody will argue.


But how many months?  How much money?  What percent of the medical spending in this country?  What percentage of MediCare or private insurance?  How old are those people?  How do we know when the clock starts that counts down until "end of life?"


I could work very hard to gather all the various answers to questions like that.  Alternatively, I could do what I've decided to do.  I'm going to leave most things I say unsupported.  On rare occasions I'll quote somebody or cite a source, but mostly I'm going to ask *you* to do the work.  My pledge to you is that I will always tell the truth.  All you need do is believe me or check the facts for yourself (in which case you'll find you could have saved time by simply believing me). 


If you agree with what I say, and I certainly expect you will, you will want to share the ideas with others.  That's why I wrote it.  You won't be able to quote me quoting other people, however, so you'll need to find ways to communicate without a bunch of supporting detail.


Thou shalt not kill, except one who has put another God before Me, the true God, because that one is not really a human.  It is permissible, in fact encouraged, to wage war upon heretics, infidels, heathens and those by any other name who do not worship me.  Killing them is a good idea.


One should not eat pigs, humans or human-like creatures because of the risk of Trichinosis.  Also there is a dearth of sauces and appropriate methods to cook such things.  With adequate cooking methods and sauces, history would have recorded the eating of those enemy animals killed on the field of battle.


It is also encouraged to form tribes of humans so long as they believe as we do.  It is an imperative for the tribe to grow, eventually becoming a very large "nation state."  We may do whatever is necessary to strengthen the bond between members of the tribe, including the founding of common languages.  In an extension of the "wage war on heathens" concept, we (as a tribe or a nation state) may wage war on other tribes and nation states, because they are not like us.


We are commanded to be "fruitful and multiply."  The cynical might think the intent is to have more people of one religion than another.  Perhaps the intent is to have a larger nation state than the one next door.  In any event, get busy breeding.


God has give us dominion over the entire planet.  The animals, nature, you name it.  Unlike "the animals, nature, you name it," all of which die when their physical bodies do, man is immortal.  While the body dies, the "soul" lives on forever.  In fact, there are concepts of an "afterlife" in virtually every organized religion.  Heaven, Hell, Paradise, Reincarnation -- I'm sure there are several I'm missing -- are all concepts in religion.  So, what makes a person's soul go to a "better" place?  The person must faithfully follow a list of religious laws, rule, commandments.  Upon the person's death, God will determine the destination of the person's soul.  Reincarnated as a mosquito?  Spending eternity screaming in pain, burning in the fires of Hell?  Having sex with 72 virgins?  Some religions have a sort of "audit trail" and redemption process.  "You did bad?  Do this and be forgiven."  We wouldn't want you to think you had messed up forever and either chose to live badly from now on or leave or religion.


Veterinarians practice something called "beneficence": "Do good."  A vet will "put to sleep" (i.e. humanely kill) a pet whose quality of life has degraded significantly.  We routinely "put down" old, sick animals.  Doctors, on the other hand, take an oath that begins, "First do no harm."  This concept is called "non-maleficence."   They support their fellow humans in following a "commandment" that's been adopted by society and I find it hard to believe it doesn't have a foundation in religion.  It says, "You should live forever, or die trying."  You can find that sentiment said by Yossarian, the protagonist in Joseph Heller's 1961 novel "Catch-22."


This is the part I haven't researched yet.  From whence comes that commandment?
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Life extension, anti aging, experimental gerontology

o o o


I watched a "Frontline" program on PBS tonight called "Facing Death."  It discussed the extraordinary technology available to doctors to preserve the lives of the terminally ill and the difficult decisions the patients and their families and medical proxies needed to face to decide whether to implement those measures or allow the patient to die.


Almost always, the patients and others chose to take whatever desperate, drastic and very expensive measures were available to preserve their lives.  As a doctor said, it may be ONLY in this country that doctors participate in providing such care.  Billions of dollars are being spent on care completely unlikely to improve the quality of life of the dying.


I wrote a line I rather like a while ago, "I've never seen a place on the road ahead where I would want to be."  Call me pretentious, but it somehow reminds me of Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."


I don't have a clever way of saying the following:  I don't see a reason to live.  I cannot imagine my ever seeing one.


Is this the result of some psychiatric malady?  Am I extremely depressed, perhaps suffering from a "Major Depression" or the downswing of Bipolar Disorder?  I'll admit to feeling blue, but I suggest it is "anomie." Anomie is the depression people feel when they come to realize the truth of existential nihilism.


And so I see myself not as a person depressed because I'm sick but as a depressed realist.


I want to explain my position, not to convince you of anything (well perhaps that isn't entirely true), but to leave a very short record of my life.  I want to tell you *why* I see no future.


There are a few elements I see as critical to wanting to live.  The presence of even one of them might be enough for most people, especially when they're ignorant of the the things I know.  Unfortunately, I have none of those things, and I am very far from ignorant.


And so I will recap many of the writings I have done before; talking about religion and love.  I may not explain how I got to be who I am, but I *will* explain who I am.
---
There is nothing as valuable as a human life.
Ask anybody.
And ending a human life is the worst possible sin.
Ask a member of any religion.  Or police force.
Nobody may end a life, whether it belongs to a very old, very sick person, a younger person or, many say, a fetus *in utero*.


Nobody may end your life.  Suicide is not an option, so you may not end your own.
It is your, right, your duty, your mission to live forever, or die trying.  With a tiny list of exceptions, there is never a right time or a right way to die, other than a "natural" death of old age.


That pretty much wraps up the fundamentals.  With few variations, that's what everybody has been told about human life.  Told from the earliest age one can comprehend such things by parents, clergy, teachers, family and friends.  Told by every authority figure in one's life.


Depending an individual's religion, one may believe a human life is holy, sacred, more valuable than any other kind of life.  One may believe humans have souls that exist independently of the body and go on after the body dies.


You may have heard all this before.  In fact, it is a virtual certainty you have.  What's more, you probably believe it deeply.  It's all you ever were told.


Most people are told there is an afterlife, that their souls go on.  Whether it goes into Heaven or Paradise or is Reincarnated depends on what religion they follow.  The soul's future destination is often said to depend on the quality and goodness of the life a person leads.  Quality and goodness are defined by a person's obedience of laws said to have been given by God.
I've written this all before, but to sum up ...


Life is a very brief state that occurs before eternal death.  While to exist in this time and place is a very unlikely event, it is not special in any sense other than its rarity.  There is no mystical, religious significance to it.  There is no imperative to live as long as possible unless living is something one perceives as good.


I listed elsewhere some of the "reasons to live" that would make life worth living.  Without them, there is no point.  Living without purpose simply means consuming the Earth's resources.  As I've said before, people who have either had children or decided not to do so are, as far as nature is concerned, no longer necessary.  Their genetic contribution has been made or halted.  In either case, all they do from that point on is be a drain on the planet.


I'm a sort of radical environmentalist.  I see people as parasites, yet do nothing about it on my own.  I don't see the point.


o o o


The difference between my living and dying today instead of as a very old, sick man? ... there is none.  Absent joy, I might as well leave now and be done with it.


The life I led is meaningless now.  Then again, "now" is not the issue.  My life was meaningless when I was alive, too.  More than that, *every* life, now and that ever has been, was and is meaningless.  Christ, Einstein, Hitler, the good, the bad, and the ugly, everyone.


Why?


There are some who would say, "The universe will end," or "The galaxy will end," or "The Sun will burn out," so nothing matters.  The stated timeframes for these events are usually in the millions of years away.  People who make such arguments are (in my humble opinion) simply making excuses to avoid being engaged in their lives.  They, or their pathologies, choose to accept no responsibility for their lives.


I will propose something similar that I consider a good deal more compelling, but it is not the real thrust of my argument.


If we are interested in preserving of the human species, we should give serious thought to what the Infectious Disease doctors have been saying for many years.  Bacteria evolve.  They always have.  There are several we now  call "superbugs" that are resistant to all but (in some instances) one or two of the antibiotics we have ever invented.  I acquired one of them in the hospital in 2007.  I was on IV meds for a week and the bacteria caused permanent damage.  I was lucky.  These same bugs kill people.  Lots of people.  Every day.  We don't talk about it.  If pharmaceutical companies don't do research and development on new antibiotics, one of these days, *soon*, a bug will appear that nothing can cure.  It is likely, *very likely*, all humans will be destroyed.  


Don't take my word for it.  You might read "Rising Plague," a book that takes only a slightly less bleak view, by Infectious Disease doctor Brad Spellberg M.D.  You might visit http://www.idsociety.org/, the web site for the Infectious Disease Society of America.  These people are not fools; they are experts.


It could be a few years.  It might be a few months, weeks, or days from now.  Very soon everybody will catch "colds" or get cuts that turn into infections that become diseases that kill.  Inevitable.  Count on it.


o o o


Let me recall one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, The Original Series.  Episode 77: The Savage Curtain (1966).
Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, plus two aliens impersonating Abraham Lincoln and the Vulcan legend Surak, 
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Perhaps best known as the episode in which Abraham Lincoln is seen, rather absurdly, floating through space in a big ol' presidential chair, "The Savage Curtain" is one of those death-match shows in which a busybody alien wants to witness true human(oid) mettle in an arranged battle. Lincoln asks Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) to accompany him to a planet where Excalbians have organized a fight between good (Kirk's party plus a Vulcan icon) and evil (Genghis Khan, Kahless the founder of the Klingon Empire, and two guys you never heard of). The derivative, obvious story was half-written by Gene Roddenberry and dumped on another writer, Arthur Heinemann, after Roddenberry pulled back from Star Trek in its third season. Heinemann added some interesting moral underpinnings, but this is one of those instances in which a good television show seems to be mimicking itself. On the plus side, the show gives Sulu (George Takei) a rare opportunity to command the Enterprise bridge--experience that surely served him well later as a Starfleet captain in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. --Tom Keogh




IMDB: Kirk, Spock, Abraham Lincoln, and Surak are pitted in battle against four notorious villains from history for the purpose of helping a molten rock creature's understanding of a concept he does not understand, 'good verses evil'.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708477/


wikipedia: Overview: Aliens force Kirk and Spock to battle illusory villains.


Genghis Khan. The aliens then pit Kirk, Spock, Lincoln, and Surak against Green, Kahless, Zora, and Genghis Khan


o o o


I've thought about and written about all this many times before.  If you've been reading my stuff, you've seen this already.


Nature gives us two rules: reproduce and live forever.  Once having reproduced, however, nature has no real use of us.  We have passed along our genetic uniqueness and are no longer necessary.  If we have chosen not to reproduce, nature has no use of us either.


"Live forever" could well be amended "or die trying."  Nothing lives forever.  Out in the wild, one might as well live as long as possible, until one becomes weak and an easy meal for a predator.  Everything has a place in nature, if only to be another creature's next meal.


The unfortunate thing is that in "civilized" human society we live for so many years.  I saw a TV program about San Francisco just before the 1906 earthquake.  They said life expectancy for men was 47 and for women 50.  My mother-in-law, a very nice woman, is 90.  That is unusually old, but living past 70 or 80 is common.  And, not to take anything from my mother-on-law, beyond that "reproduce" age mentioned before all one does is be a consumer of the Earth's scarce resources.  In terms of contributing to the planet, man is a disaster, a parasite.


So why do we live so long?  We are programmed to do so, both by nature and by society.  And, by the way, it is not particularly easy to do otherwise.  Society (especially the medical profession) is interested in "helping" you stay alive.  In fact, in nearly all the 50 states in this country, the terminally ill may NOT be assisted to die, even if it's what they want.  The mercy we show to a pet is denied to a human being.


I mentioned the "ease" of dying.  It isn't easy to leave this life.  The body doesn't want to die, so it usually takes an act of violence.  If you think of the ways of committing murder, those are typically the same ways to commit suicide, only self-inflicted.  There are at least two, however, that aren't violent.  One is to take an overdose of powerful narcotics.  The other is to inhale an inert gas until one asphyxiates.


But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Why should one choose to die?


I put it to you that the question ought to be, "Why should one choose to live?"


If, after reproducing or choosing not to, a person had to make a conscious decision each day to live or die, instead of having society say to "live forever," I think society might be different.  I wrote a satire called "Grand for Grandma" in which Grandma could choose to be launched out over the Grand Canyon via an enormous (Acme Brand) rubber band.  Grandma would, of course, die in the process, but she would get one heck of a last ride and her family would be given $1,000 (a Grand) for the rights to tape and air the event (on Fox News).  It would be her decision of when the moment was right to go.


I think if people had a strong awareness of being destructive parasites and a painless method existed to make an exit, the daily decision would be, "Do I have a reason to live?"  The answer for nearly everybody would be Yes.  They had family, a significant other, one or more jobs or hobbies they loved, etc.  There were an infinite number of possibilities.  Life was good, so they would choose to continue living it.  But that wouldn't be true for everybody.


Some people, even without the cash incentive grandma gets in my satirical piece, would choose to die if it were easy to do and there was no stigma associated with it.  I refer you to "Ethical Suicide Parlors," to Vonnegut or the end of "Soylent Green."  


How different society would be if nobody tried to "save" the "depressed" who chose to die.  I suggest we either celebrate their decision or at least accept it.


So we get to the case of myself.  Despite society having not yet caught up to my vision of how it will be, I find myself in the category of people who have no reason to live.  


I think I mentioned "live forever or die trying."  I have a kind of "glass half-empty, glass half-full" thought for you.  I was talking with a nice psychiatric nurse a few weeks ago who agreed with the cliche expression "Life is too short."  Her take on it was, "So why hasten to end it?"  My reaction instead was, "So why bother?"


I think I'll skip my rant about life, my life, all human life, the existence of the planet and the universe all being meaningless.  You can read it elsewhere here.  But the bottom line is this: life is meaningless, humans are parasites, only those humans who can demonstrate (to themselves) a good reason for living should do so.  That's how I see it.


Knowing it's repeated many times here already, I'll also skip my opinion about (all) religion and the afterlife.  I see life becoming death as a light switch being thrown.  One moment your consciousness, all you are and ever have been, exists.  The next you cease to be, to have ever been.  You don't go to heaven or get reincarnated.  You disappear.  There is no "you."  Unless the matter that was your body drifts to some other place someday where it combines with other matter to become another entity, nothing of you will ever matter (pun intended) again. 


I am experiencing the anomie of existential nihilism.  Which means, I'm depressed because nothing matters.


Some (perhaps most) ask the question this way, "Why do you want to die?"  I say the following.  "If I had an infinite amount of time, an infinite amount of youth, and an infinite amount of health to turn my life into whatever I want, I would want to live.  But I don't.  So I won't."