Tuesday, May 21, 2013

At the Verge of Giving Up


Have you ever felt nigh to giving up on something?

I know I have.
And sometimes, I've actually decided just to leave a matter as it is. I'm sure that you neither haven't always done everything that you at some point intended to do. And we will all continue to do just this; give up.


Giving up can be interpreted very broadly. Giving up doesn't always have to be a bad thing. Then again, it often is.


Sometimes, I just get this feeling that nothing, ultimately, matters. In the end, all traces of what you've ever done will probably disappear. It might take several thousand years, possibly millions or even BILLIONS of them. But nevertheless, all that you have ever been proud of, all that you have succeeded with, even failed with, will at some point cease to exist, even from known history. This is of course, presuming that there is no afterlife. This is most likely one of the strongest reasons as to why many choose to be religious. That, and the lack of other hope; thus reverting to blind one.


You can give up on many things, it doesn't have to be that dramatic. Maybe your homework has sometimes been too tricky for you to feel like doing it. Or maybe, you have just been far too lazy to do anything.


However, giving up can easily be understood as giving up on life. For a reason or another, all people capable of emotion have at some point been feeling down. Some of these people may have felt that they're just like what we've discussed; at the verge of giving up. Hell, in this large world, there are people feeling like that right now!

You don't usually go around thinking of it, but there are thousands, probably many more, suffering for various reasons at the moment. Some of those people, might be feeling that there is nothing worth living for. There is only pain, whether physical or emotional.

There are millions of people hiding their emotions by daylight, crying in the shadows.
Are you one of them?


You might be. The numbers are quite scary. If i recall correctly, approximately ten percent of adults and teens are currently depressed, at least in western society. That means that right now, some people that you know well, possibly you yourself included are likely to not be that happy on the inside. Depression is actually a quite scary mental disorder, and yes, it counts as a disease even though the words sound harsh.


I wouldn't know the real sensation of depression first hand though. I have been far too lucky in my life to have any real reason to feel down. But based on what I've heard, that can be one of the most terrifying parts of depression. Not even knowing why you are sad. Sometimes, maybe there doesn't even have to be a reason?


I might not have ever really felt that way myself, but in a way, I can still relate. I'm sure you can too. Have you not sometimes just... Felt empty?


To me, this feeling has never been of severe importance. It has dissapeared in a matter of hours, or sometimes days. This feeling of emptyness can be provoked by outer reasons, for instance after finishing a good tv-series that lately has been consuming far too much of your time. This I would like to call: "Artificial depression". However, sometimes this silent sorrow can appear seemingly from nowhere. Now, can you imagine always having to live feeling like there is such an empty hole in you, only capable of being filled with grief?


These things often lead to sucidal thoughts, at some point. I have never had any, except for "jokingly", if you will. I'm sure I'm not alone to from time to time having weird thoughts crossing my mind. But in all seriousness, I'm generally quite joyous. In a way, it's kinda scary that I, at least as far as I can reminisce, haven't lost a single teardrop due to sorrow in possibly up to seven years. I might be wrong, but at least I know that it is as far as can be from frequent.

But really, what is the purpose of taking your own life, unless it's self sacrifice? I mean this from an evolutionary stand point. If the goal is to live and prosper, how can one benefit from doing the opposite; die and wither?

The answer is as far as I can see, in no way. It cannot even be applied to survival of the fittest. Not even close to all people who commit suicide are necessarily "weak". Naturally, there are what I would call "justified" suicides, although they seem to be more rare than the opposite. I can understand if someone chooses to give their life up in advance, if they only have physical pain in the form of uncurable cancer left to live for. There are of course, a multitude of other seemingly logical reasons as well, hence, I support euthanasia.

Still, is this empty sorrow really a reason to pass up on the one chance of living that we get?


No matter how sad you are, if there is even a slight chance for things to get better, I think resigning your life is of utmost stupidity.

I can understand if giving up might feel easy, it often is. But is it good? That depends.


I give up on something pretty much every day. For instance, today I tried to compose something good sounding for the piano, but after one hour of not really getting the results that I wanted, I gave up for the moment.

This does however not in any way mean that I'll never try again, because I'll probably already be at it again tomorrow. Most things, you can give up on for a while, only to regain them later. One of the few things this is not true for, is your life. If you loose it fully, you'll never get an opportunity to retrieve it.






Just some food for thought.





I drew this castle long ago, during art class. Sadly, it doesn't really symbolise anything. The thing about art class, at least in our school is that you have to follow certain instructions. We were supposed to draw something from this very perspective, and add something far away. It was also mandatory to have humans in the picture, for the sake of comparing size. Those shadowy figures on the walls is the closest to that that I was prepared to go. As you can imagine, in real life that castle would be more than humongous.













Anyway, there are two major reasons as to why I wrote this kind of an entry today. Firstly, I'm completely worn out mostly due to school this month. All the teachers seem to demand extra effort from you this close to summer, and everything seems to collide. Sometimes, it feels like it would be so easy just to not care about any of the homework, the essays that have to be written. The thought of just not giving a fuck about anything anymore; giving up, is tempting. However, I have managed this far, and now my long lost vacation is soon coming back to me.

Secondly, I had the weirdest dream a couple of nights ago. I dreamt about a cat, that seemed to be physically all fine. In this dream, I seem to have been aware of what the cat was thinking. Apparently, the cat had finished what it was supposed to do in life, and there was something about the cat having lost a loved one as well. Suddenly, I heard a cracking sound, and when I turned around, the cat was dead.

It's bones had somehow broken, and by the cats own will, they had pierced the small animal from the inside, so that the tips of the sharp bones were visible from the outside. The cat had nothing else to live for.
Thus, it had given up on life.


I don't know if there was any sense-making symbolism in that particular dream, but I believe that there sometimes can be. When my summer vacation arrives, I will write more about dreams whether you like it or not.



Until next time, don't give up.


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