Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Tag: choice

  • Trying to Let Go

    Trying to Let Go

    Sometimes, more often that I’d like to admit, I can’t sleep. Insomnia is a big deal and it literally keeps me awake at night. I’ve tried a bunch of different things to combat this – stopped drinking caffeinated beverages, stayed up really late to make myself more tired, took a nap when I first got home… and more. None of that worked for me.

    I’d done some mindfulness meditation and sometimes that can help get me to a place where I just drift off, but that then leads me to get sleepy when I mediate as well. Might be worth it if it were a guaranteed solution to the problem.

    What I usually do, instead of counting sheep, is draw xes across my hear in my mind.. one line, then another, then another. The idea was formed from an old news article I read where a kid with a tumor would imagine a video game where he was destroying the tumor with spaceships and that killed it… likely he had radiation, chemo and the like but that wasn’t the headline so I didn’t really read the entire article.. that’s the American way you know. However, I thought visualization might be the key for me.

    If I spend each night, or most nights drawing a cross across my heart it may just give out during the night and I wouldn’t wake. That would be ideal to just pass in my sleep… I had considered drawing xes on a vision of my brain but I have this fear of being in a vegetative state and no one letting me die… like that one girl congress came back from vacation to save her life… which was such a ridiculous mess if you ask me… let people die, what’s wrong with you people.

    Anyway… I’m still here and still breathing and the heart is still beating….. so it doesn’t work, trust me I’ve been doing this for a while now.

    Last night instead of doing that I thought “maybe i just need to let go, if I just relax my body and mind and completely let it all go I’ll just fade away” that kept me up for a while, thinking on that and how it might be a solution. Didn’t work, obviously, here I am writing a blog post about wishing I were gone.

    Thing is, I don’t want to go violently or make a mess… I just want to go. I mean, if I were to get shot while just doing what I normally do or die in a car crash I didn’t cause… well I’m not going to struggle to hold on… but if I had my way it would be easier to just go.

    I ponder frequently about why we, as a society, don’t have a simpler way to do this. I guess most people don’t think like this… so why would they think a solution would be needed. But I reflect on the many suicides in the world each day and how they went… can’t we make it easier for them and survivors… just make it a new part of our culture… someone wants to die… who are we to say “No you can’t”. You want to live and I’m not saying “no you can’t” so how is it fair?

    not that life is fair I guess…

    I don’t actually think that all suicide is because someone is depressed or mad or running away… I think sometimes, me in particular, some people just are done… it’s a nihilist thing I guess… not caring, not wanting to have anything to do with anyone or anything… just wanting to be done.

    So tonight, like last night, I will just try to let go of reality and pass… I’m not hopeful, but strangely it’s something to look forward to.

  • Long Enough

    I don’t know why people are so opposed to physician assisted suicide. What’s the big deal – these folks have or are about to experience pain, disease, hopelessness like no health person can understand at all. What’s wrong with letting them go and finding a for sure way to enable the end of that pain for them.

    I think it’s a religion thing mostly – the “sin” of suicide that you’ll suffer in hell for all eternity if you take your own life. Well and I guess family and friends might be “hurt” or saddened at the sudden loss of someone – but why is it there business if the person is sick? That I don’t understand. Don’t they want the pain and suffering to end for that person, have they seen the despair and anguish in that person’s eyes?

    I don’t know. I don’t know why it’s anyone else’s choice at all.

    I think if you decide you’ve lived long enough hell feel free to go. It shouldn’t be looked upon with shame and fear but as someone’s own choice. You want to go – go.

    Sure there should be caveats… if you’re under 30 you don’t get to choose suicide, young people often make terrible decisions (marriage, babies, college, Justin Beiber albums…). There should be a minimum 2 week waiting period and psychiatric evaluation (of course current psychiatric ideas would have to be tossed into the trash) would be mandatory. Also you couldn’t do this type of thing to escape a debt, I think people should pay their debts.

    There are so many people out there struggling to stay alive – some many people that need organs. A systematic suicide program could keep people who want to die alive long enough to donate otherwise healthy organs to people who don’t want to die. This seems to make a lot of sense to me… maybe we could find a way to kill the brain but leave the body functioning until all of the organs and marrow were harvested for use with people.

    It’s rather controversial I’m sure, but really who are we to decide that someone has to live – why is it any of our business at all? If we could offer a safe, economic way to allow people to “move on” if you will – wouldn’t that be to the benefit of society over all? Wouldn’t it be better than locking them up in institution or jails or pumping them full of chemicals to try to correct their brain? Who’s to say this isn’t a natural part of what’s supposed to happen? The planet is overcrowded.. there are too many people already.

    Me, I figure 10 – 15 more years should be long enough.