RE: virus: Life: Is it worth it?

MarXidad (marxidad@idirect.com)
Wed, 24 Jun 1998 00:34:09 -0400


> (21 and only 1/2 a year left! or so they say!)

I've been thinking about whether or not life is worth living these past
few days and having just turned 21 myself, reading that shifts things into
perspective a bit more.
Back in '92/93, during adolescence, I for whatever reason lost my will to
live as well as any sense of purpose and became suicidal. I tried to take
my own life on at least one occasion. During the worst time of that period,
what I still consider the worst time of my life so far, I was in despair
because I didn't think there was any way I could kill myself and therefore
forced to live in agony. Then I was reminded of the feasibility of hanging
and I was hopeful again, so much that I felt what I thought was genuine
happiness. I was reanimated, vibrant, charismatic, and ambitious and I
thought that it was because I planned on killing myself. But then I was
able to enjoy life and considered sticking around a bit longer--until I hit
another snag. A few months afterward I experienced another bout of
spontaneous euphoria and that's when it was officially determined that I
was manic-depressive.
Aside for a few short-lived manic episodes, most of that era was spent in
depression and so I usually had very little will to live if any at all. All
that changed in my last manic episode, in October '94. I was so elated it
was orgasmic and for no apparent reason, either. I felt I was getting high
on life itself and because of the delusional nature of being manic I
thought my personal life all of a sudden was absolutely fabulous, that
everyone was my friend, and that the future would progressively get better
and better. And more than ever before I wanted to live--in fact, live
forever. And I wanted to know everything, I craved knowledge more than I
ever did before.
That didn't last long either and from there I fell back into a
depression, one that lasted three years, ending in the fall of '97. But all
that time I was still fervid for more knowledge of everything, I still had
a will to live and to this day wish to be immortal (in the same way
Extropians do). A lot of the time through that depression I didn't consider
life worth living and if in 1993 I knew what would happen in the five years
afterwards I probably would have made a greater effort to kill myself. Even
though I didn't think life was worth living anyway I didn't want to
seriously consider suicide again. I was actually willing to live in
depression until I was 30. Then maybe I'd kill myself, Idunno.
I just recently relapsed and so even today I don't feel my life is worth
living. But I do think life itself is worth living. I used to wonder why
the homeless, who beg all day and sleep in the cold of night, don't kill
themselves. Well, there are different reasons for that but I guess what
keeps them alive, if not fear of death, is hope. That they won't
necessarily always be homeless and the prospect of one day having a secure
and sheltered life is worth sleeping in the cold all those nights.
Life may not necessarily be worth living, but I think it's worth fighting
for all the same.

/_/ / /o / /
/ / / / / / Mark Cidade
/ / /) / / / _ http://www.marxidad.com/glub
/ \/\ \_/\/\_X/ ^^^^

"When all else is lost,
the future still remains."

- Christian Bovee

"It was previously a question of finding
out whether or not life had to have a
meaning to be lived. It has now become clear,
on the contrary, that it will be lived all
the better if it has no meaning."

- Albert Camus