Weird Nightmare

It's funny to be craving death simply as a means of ending all the seemingly endless bullshit of life. I've been observing my tendency to fantasize about being dead a lot more since I learned that it is one of the three kinds of craving in Buddhism:

"Vibhava-taṇhā (craving for non-existence):craving to not experience unpleasant things in the current or future life, such as unpleasant people or situations. This sort of craving may include attempts at suicide and self-annihilation, and this only results in further rebirth in a worse realm of existence. This type of craving, states Phra Thepyanmongkol, is driven by the wrong view of annihilationism, that there is no rebirth." (from Wiki)

ha- Annihilationism, now there's a religion. 

And what a hilariously cruel sort of idea- that self-annihilation only leads to further rebirth in a worse realm of existence. I would think that sort of cosmic sadism out to be outlawed. In fact, given the level of anguish that precedes suicide and the stubborn existential freedom that the act itself promotes, annihilating the self should perhaps more properly be rewarded. I guess there has always been this taboo against suicide, however.  

I was in a partnership with someone for five years who, during that time, attempted suicide twice. The experience made me look at my default attitudes- that life is worth living, that suicide should be prevented whenever possible, that suicide is always tragic and always unnecessary. I learned from this woman that she didn't want to be dead so much, but simply wanted the unrelenting misery of her emotional life to end. I think those who experience more acute suffering and who more generally enjoy life on a fundamental level find it hard to imagine what the experience of an emotionally disturbed person is like. My own persistent depressive disorder is fairly mild by comparison to the agonies some people suffer. Once we think of a physical metaphor- imagine a physical pain so chronic, unrelenting and all-consuming, with no relief in sight, and knowing you will suffer in such a way for the rest of your existence- maybe then we can understand better the desire for annihilation for the emotionally suffering. 

But quite apart from the suicide impulse as a response to end agony, there's also this whole area of anomic suicide, which is starting to get more attention these days. 

I think of that saying: "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." I'd say it's equally true to say: "If you're not destroyed regularly by anomie, you're not paying attention." It seems we are bombarded daily with reminders that everything is completely collapsing, is absurdly meaningless, and we are absolutely insignificant. As our species has accessed more knowledge about the physical universe- its vastness on the one hand, both in time and space, and the totally stochastic yet mechanistic operations of matter at a quantum scale- it has dawned on us more and more how puny, delusional and ephemeral we are. The great achievements in human culture seemed to have needed the surrounding context of a belief in human greatness. It seems now that we have a surrounding context of human shittiness, idiocy, alienation, absurdity and misery. The most basic acts of decency and kindness are seen as heroic now. 

For me personally, I usually do simply enjoy life, on a fundamental level. In fact, I am by nature an enthusiast. When music, art, literature, or a person resonates with me, it usually deeply affects me, bowls me over, gets me enthused. There are a lot of people, it seems, who do not experience the world in that enthusiastic, passionate way. I get it. When I am in the throes of despair, or even just flatlining emotionally, nothing reaches me. I can look at the most incredible night sky, for example, and feel nothing at all, or feel crushing despair. 

Dar Williams has a song about sinking into a nearly fatal depression but choosing to live. And her post-choice world is characterized by *participation*, especially participation in beauty.

"Well the sun rose
With so many colors it nearly broke my heart
It worked me over like a work of art
And I was a part of all that
So go ahead push your luck
Say what it is you gotta say to me
We will push on into that mystery
And it will push right back
And there are worse things than that
'cause for every price and every penance that I could think of
It's better to have fallen in love

Than never to have fallen at all."

This is the way those of us who live with thoughts of annihilation ultimately choose, at least for today, to stick around. The old saw that it is "better to have fallen in love, than never to have fallen at all," is one of the major turns we take in the direction of staying. The simple thought I had the other night—that, as painful as losses are, the loss is only made possible by the beauty of the experience in the first place. This also reminds my of the Band of Horses song, No One's Gonna Love You. 



Because sometimes it feels exactly like that. 

"It's looking like a limb torn off
Or all together just taken apart
We're reeling through an endless fall
We are the ever-living ghost of what once was
But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do

No one's gonna love you more than I do."

It does look exactly like a limb torn off. And when we're hit with a loss like that, our first idea is of course that it's awful to lose a limb. But it's weird to imagine being grateful for having had the limb. Remembering all the awesome things we did with that limb, and how much it did for us. Thanks, limb. Sorry you're in the biohazard bin now, but thanks. I would not have traded all that time with that limb for anything. 

In fact, it was this strange line of thought that inspired me to quit smoking and hike and exercise more. "If I ever lose a leg, I want to be able to say, 'well, at least I used the damn thing when I had it.'" A strange line of thought, but it was an inner psychology that worked for me. It was brought home in December when I lost a retina, temporarily. It was brought home in September when I got the cancer diagnosis. 

Along these lines, I acknowledge that much of my recent grief is because an experience that was very important to me never was able to fully unfold. It was a limb torn off before it had a chance to be used very much. I think experience just wants a chance to be, and when it's thwarted in many ways and then meets the immovable denial of its continuance, that is a very special kind of painful loss. The loss of both what was and what could have been. This must be why it is especially awful when someone dies young. We don't just deal with their loss, but the loss of everything they could have done. 

Of course, that is all more story, and more imagination. Nothing that was not could have been. I mean, there is no could have been. There is just what we've got. The trick is to radically accept that. This is this. The rest is fantasy. The rest is never. Never was, never will be. Always could have been, which is nothing. Is not real. Never was real and never will be. Even what actually was, is no more and never will be again. How much more then that the could have been is never, was never, and never will be. 

Sometimes I experience that bracing smack in the soul as a relief. I tell myself, be grateful for what you had, take refuge in the present, and let go. Sometimes I experience the brick wall of truth as if I have run right into at at full speed. Mangled, crushed, bleeding out. 

I had a nightmare a couple nights ago that a certain imagined life was manifested. One would think that would be a great dream. It may have started out that way, I don't recall. But it was a nightmare because, suddenly, in the midst of what felt like the solid manifestation of some of my dearest hopes, I was betrayed, it ended, and I was treated cruelly, with mockery and dismissal. Out of the dark side by side with a dream woman, she said, with an acidulous tone, "haha, you actually thought I meant all of that? You always were a dumb romantic and a gullible fool." I woke up with a start, feeling sick. 

I think this dark face of the universe is at least in part what my fantasies of annihilation seek to counter. Maybe even seek to get revenge against. Oh- you-universe- you think you can fucking fuck with me? 

Hold my will to live and watch this. 

Yet: it's maybe even sweeter revenge to bounce back. In the nightmare, I was unable to detach, to realize the coldness and rejection belonged to the dream woman, not me. But in life, I'm learning equanimity. It's not about me. As they say in 12 step rooms: even when it is about you, it's not about you. This resilience might be the most powerful revenge we can get on a capricious universe that seems to like to watch us writhe. Fuck you, I insist on loving anyway, I insist on enjoying life, I insist on the madness of remaining here.