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@JayT79 @Princess Arabia The truth is, we don’t have a definitive understanding of why people commit suicide. Some people actually do it out of the blue, even if there were absolutely no signs of mental health conditions in them. That is not creepy, that is how nature intended it to be.

Seriously? You wan't me to provide data. Tons of people are committing suicide everyday for different reasons; and for the mere fact that I've read of guys who have become depressed and say they are suicidal over their inability to get laid is enough data for me to come to that assessment. The data on the amount of suicides is more accessible than the reasons why people do it. Just because you haven't or never thought to do so is irrelevant to my statement. Consider yourself proof by omission. People are always basing things on their own personal experience not realizing there are 8billion people world wide which i'm sure at least one has done this and can say that without needing data or proof.

This maybe true but do you have data for this? I mean I have a lack of experience with women and not had a lot of sexual experience with women but the idea of killing oneself is a bit of stretch. I couldn't fathom myself killing myself because I wasn't getting pussy from women. Maybe my intellectual knowledge of spirituality from this forum and psychedelic experience and practicing stay in the moment has prevented me leading to suicide.

Suicide can and will be recontexualized profoundly. You start to understand what suicide more openly and without judgement.

@jaylimix i've been reading your latest comments i think i should make the subsequent objections: 1- you claim the word Genocide is not fitting situation in Palestine - i invite you to take at look at my post page 241. The term can be applied and there is consensus on it, but western mainstream media is reclutant to talk about it for obvious reasons. 2- the fact that the population of palestinians is rising doesn't tell much about the quality of their existence. 3- You should't blame it on Islam about the suicide bombers. Pretty much every religion had their terrorist throughout history. The problem is their level of development and situation, not religion.

@Princess Arabia I am not "threatening" suicide. It just overwhelms me. Leo was such an important figure in my life. For so long. He is neither stupid nor delusional. When he tells me he does not experience a subjective experience the way I do, I just freak out.

I understand. I will just add my personal feeling about it. Iran is grasped as a very big demon in the eyes of Israelis, and thats because Iran is really the big brain that stands behind and funds Hezbollah, hamas, and the palestinian suicide bombing in busses and restaurants Israel is traumatized by from the early 00's, and also terror activities abroad against Israelis. During the recent decade Iran is developing a nuclear weapon at the exact same time when it declares more and more publicly that it wants to eliminate Israel from the map. A careful ear, when knows the past events when everybody were sure nothing really bad will happen (and we all know what happened) will take seriously this threat. The fear of Israel from Iran is very serious, and from that I can understand why Israel felt that urge to convince bush to do something that maybe will remove this untolerable nuclear threat and maybe will cause their regime to fall by the way. Also there are reasonable claims about the long term iranian's regime plan to encompass Israel physically in order to one day be able to treaten its existance. in fact, thats what middle eastern experts think that Iran wanted to do in the 7.10 surprise but hamas decided to do deal for itself and to do it alone what made Iran to be extremely in rage on it after oct 7th. I can add links on that. I agree that this is indeed hapenning, and there are a lot of close-minded Israelis especially from the right wing. But at the same time It hurts me a bit that people don't see the other sector of citizens we have here from the center-left camp (~40% and maybe more of the population) with them a deep conversation is really possible. Yes as long as the right wing is almost homogeneously controlls Israel, this is impossible. I agree about that. I can say that just couple of years ago I was more anti religion, but then I started to see that many of the "lite" religions actually have some depth in them and a sense of warmth when they relate to you, that this is harder to find among the hard-core secular ones which is interesting. But I emphasize this is probably mostly only among the 'lite' or moderate religious and of course not among the more hard-core religious that on them I agree with you.

I apologize if I was a little abrasive. But I honestly believe there are no "life situations" where my theories fly out the window. Just do a thought experiment and apply my theories to every situation. What would happen? Or tell me some specifics where my theories do not work. Even if you put me in a hellish "situation with no escape" and I killed myself, I accept that. You are probably correct about my suicide but it would still be the yin yang symbol and the two fishes going around and you are focusing on the sad fish and not the happy fish. If we manifest our reality by our vibrations or frequency, then change your frequency and create goodness in your section of the world. Your contemplating the misery amplifies the bad vibrations. If possible, re-read my original reply above and give me the benefit of the doubt. Have an open mind about my reply. Thanks.

@Lila9 Its fair to say evacuation isn't ethnic cleansing. Its fair to say turning half of the infrastructure to rubble there, and having a history of creating opportunistic settlements (which you then have to justify and defend constantly creating tension), leads people to believe you will resettle these areas as your own. I'd be AMAZED if not one new settlement happens. Its fair to say it hasn't happened yet. If anything this word is being held up now, so that isn't the course you choose as a people. Heck, I've seen people in Israel saying we'll go further south next as an example. - If I come back 5 months from now and say you've done ethnic cleansing, what good is it? It would already be done. It's why its nearly useless trying to get you to see the large fallout regionally or internationally from this, because that has happened, but it can always get worse. Leniency does not radicalize. Impulsiveness, carelessness, and inattentiveness is the opposite of vigilance, which might create opportunities for mischief, but men and women earning money, feeding their families, and living in relative safety are not prone to becoming terrorists who want to suicide bomb you, or throw rockets over at you, because their lives are mostly stable and their families cared for. The worse a situation gets the more you radicalize people. With this action you've not deradicalized anyone, you've created hundreds of thousands of new people willing to do violence across the region. Just like their actions created in you. Again this has perfectly played into Iran's hands, both because of the BRICS angle, American isolationism, many groups having an excuse and gaining a large amount of new recruits.

1) Very logical - Giving civilians a month to move south, opening up humanitarian corridor, air support first before boots on the ground otherwise it would be a suicide mission for the soldiers. 2) Aren't the leftist in the government green hence orange/green?

@Vrubel @Nivsch @hundreth @Lila9 and anyone else who enthusiastically supports Israel. A love letter to Israel (with humour, hope and good faith) - Osama Bin Shapiro Speaking on being strategic and whats in Israel's best interest. It's probably in Israel's best interest to not take their cue from America in how to deal with the war on terror through bombardments. A chihuahua can't learn from and act like the Pitbull that claims to have its back. America has a geography blessed with vast seas on its sides, a ally to its North and a weak neutral nation to its South that geopolitically insulates it from its foreign adventures. It can go around bombarding regions and barely have any repercussion - Europe bears the brunt of the cost via the refugee crises caused by these wars. I would offer my cousin Aladdin's flying carpet for escape but your state carpet bombed it. First, make sure not to deny the facts corroborated by international state bodies and human rights organisations on Israel's situation. Move the sideburn curls away from the ears and listen to the world. What you deem labels such as occupation, apartheid lite and discriminatory security structures are realities for millions of Palestinians. Occupation doesn't mean the most literal definition of the word like when you go to the toilet it says occupied by someone sitting on it - Israeli's don't have to be sitting on Palestinians laps in Gaza eating Baklava to claim occupation or defecating on their land - they can be occupied externally by controls of their border, sea and airspace depriving, dehumanising and un-dignifying them. Israel should avoid being duped by neo con evangelical interests who portray themselves to be on Israel's side but fill their pockets from war profits at the cost of Israeli/Palestinians filling their graveyards with bodies and who's pockets are filled with nothing, but instead get eviscerated by the burns from bomb blasts and the white phosphorus that US provides Israel. Deep down they wish to see their demented prophecies of Armageddon and the return of Jesus manifest - like wise for the fundamentalists of Judaism and Islam of which the former wants to hasten the Messiah and the latter their Mahdi for the 'great battle' after which Islam prevails. Israel acting the way America does in response to 'terror' endangers it in a way America acting that way doesn't. Israel sits by itself in a angered region. Israel's actions have enraged the Global South and domestic Westerners which are its own allies. Even Western media outlets critique Israel's actions as they are unable to keep up with propaganda that gets shred by the advent of social media and alternative media. Their are limits to Americas interests - they can't just bankroll the expulsion of 2.3million people and destruction of their homes with the current technology that allows the world to see it and feel it. It's not just the scale of destruction (more than 50% of homes destroyed) and civilian death (children and women) but the timescale of it (in the span of 2 months) that puts this conflict in a terrible light and moral standing for Israel. Israel are losing the sympathy of the world in real time - it may think it can win the battle but definitely not the War. Footprints disappear but good luck dealing with the digital footprint of massacre that don't as easily for decades to come and the constant hostility that brings with it globally - but we're meant to think this onslaught makes the Jewish diaspora feel safer. ''Western public has lost all its appetite for war. All the careful sanitising, video-gamifying and propagandizing that has been put in place since Vietnam in order to build a platform of consent for “humanitarian” wars has cratered into nothing. You can’t have a up close screening of the reality of bombs and all the things they do to human flesh and then go back to the way you were ever again. Millions of western eyes have been changed forever.'' Those to whole evil is done, do evil in return. Israel not only defends itself but has the strategy to establish deterrence capacity - deterrence by definition is supposed to be disproportionate to scare off / terrorise hostility (de facto terrorism in policy) but only causes further hostility and terrorism. Deterrence through strength means being strong, not necessarily flexing that strength on your neighbours like a narcissistic school bully which radicalises them towards you. If Israel or any countries safety requires the occupation, imprisonment and oppression of a people, you don't have safety and never will. Resistance movements are built on the blood of martyrs which Israel ensures a continual supply of. Their called grassroots movements for a reason - you can't get rid of them unless you poison the soil ie genocide, expulsion or brutal subjugation. Ironically a used phrase to describe Israeli operations is 'mowing the grass' which is periodic to keep resistance checked. But this resistance will never stop unless the soil is destroyed because its the soil (people) that keeps the grass (resistance) growing. Everything Israel obtains through oppression is inherently violent and must be upheld through violence - that violence will be justified through ideas of superiority and the idea that those you oppress must be more violent and oppressive than you. And when that oppression is resisted as it always has been, that resistance will firstly be gaslighted as barbaric terrorism from savages and secondly will be used to feed the fear of safety needed to maintain that cycle, a cycle set in motion by the aggressor who attempts to reverse the role of victim and victimizer, aggressor and defender in a bid to clean its global image and standing and not lose support from its main benefactor being the US. But The US can't be stained with the sticker of ethnic cleansing and more blood than it already has and that the world has become sick of. They most likely won't continue to bankroll this or else the current party risk political suicide- and if you lose US support domestically, politically and economically you become very lonely in a neighbourhood you can't afford to be lonely in. This is where Israel's arrogance and entitlement is its downfall - a level of arrogance and entitlement shared by your habibi - Bibi Satanyahu. Ultra-Zionist aspirations are limited by the ceiling that is the Palestinians suffering that the world will not stand by. If lobby interests, the state and the military industrial complex go ahead and get involved despite domestic disapproval anyway - this will suck Hezbollah and other actors into the war - world war 3 is here and we'll probably be too busy to rendezvous on forums like this. You reap what you sow - you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind - and in the Middle East if you sow the wind you reap the sandstorm that blinds you from humanity and chokes the throats from which their should be uttered words of peace and a breaking of bread eaten at the table together alongside local Judean olive oil and hummus. Peace for all though for real, inshallah.

I think some people will go down bad paths without it early though, say drug addiction, suicide, or suicide by 9to5(i.e. the American Dream), but not all. If you have a good family upbringing you would regret it a long time until you figure it out.

@hundreth ''The fact remains, Israel receives an incredibly disproportionate amount of contempt and hate given what many consider it's biggest crime: existing. There's nothing Israel can do to satisfy you except for committing suicide and ceasing to be.'' Past colonial foundations exist but don't discredit present existing states (Israel) that came from it. Thats not the issue. The issue is when an oppressive and discriminatory system and security apparatus still exists as a residue of that root colonialism that needs to be rid of in the 21st century. Relics of past colonialism that are unjust can't exist in a post colonial world as most are opposed to it. Just as relics of religion and tradition that are unjust can't exist in a post religious and traditional world - although we shouldn't just throw the baby out with the bath water. Most sensible people aren't calling for the end of Israel, but the end of how it currently exists. I even commented two pages back that I'm all for defending their existence and right to defend itself.

Oh, so first it was related to the notion of a "Jewish state", now you've moved the goalposts to "Occupiers" and "apartheid". So you're allowed to have a religious state, as long as certain organizations don't label you as occupiers, I see. The fact remains, Israel receives an incredibly disproportionate amount of contempt and hate given what many consider it's biggest crime: existing. There's nothing Israel can do to satisfy you except for committing suicide and ceasing to be. Because to you, it's very foundation is one of colonialism. Never mind that every other nation's is. This is an interesting video with different perspectives from people living in Israel, including Arab citizens. At 6:04 an arab citizen is interviewed. Despite testifying that Israel is using disproportionate force, and even possibly committing ethnic cleansing in Gaza, he concedes that life for him as an Arab citizen is much better in Israel than ANY other arab nation on the planet. "I am not changing the country I am living in." "Meaning it's better here?" "Than any Arab country? There is no comparison. There is nothing to compare. There is nothing comparable. I'm telling you. There is no comparison between an Arab Israeli and Arabs in other countries. I am telling you it is from experience. I've been to Egypt. I've been to Jordan." and then he continues... The forest for the trees is that despite all the criticisms, Israel is far and away the nation which treats it's Arab citizens better than the surrounding nations. And before you label this more whataboutism, this same argument is used by anti Israel voices to somehow claim the Arab locals pre 1948 were so friendly and accommodating to Jews as compared to literal Nazis. But now we're talking about as compared to Islamic nations!

Firstly, we are talking about morality. Most of the things you listed are immoral because they are a fundamental undermining of someones will. Rape, murder and so forth is immoral not simply because there is a likelihood of suffering occuring, but because the individuals do not consent to such things. When we are talking about laws, even if something causes harm, we have to be careful not to restrict human beings rights to autonomy. Sexual freedom should have a significant burden to be restricted between consenting adults, because of how fundamental this aspect is to human well being. And furthermore, we have to be as precise as we can be when restricting the freedoms of individuals. Meaning, we cannot just ban homosexual relationships because there might come harm from them to society (if that was the case), we would attempt to actually specifically find the thing that is causing the harm and target that. If we cannot do that, and the harm to society is proven to be exceptionally high, then you might have a case. But then, still we are not talking about morality but simply about maintaining society. Now, I will propose this hypothetical to you again: If 90% of interracial relationships lead to abusive dynamics, would it be immoral, or should it be illegal for consenting adults to engage in such relationships? And remember, when we target the specific thing where abuse mostly occurs (which is in child exploitation incest cases), you will probably see that the rest of the cases, because then we are talking only about consenting adults, probably are not significantly more harmful than any normal relationship, aside from the social costs associated with the taboo and the obvious costs coming from engaging in illegal activity. If you want to restrict adults from engaging in these types of sexual relationships, what you would need is actual evidence that these relationships cause a level of harm to society that would outweigh the need for the sexual freedom of consenting individuals. But you don't have that evidence, because all relationships that you do have data on now already require a willingness to engage in illegal activity, which will heavily bias this towards individuals who lack moral integrity and so forth. By nature of how society is constructed you basically are selecting for the most dysfunctional dynamics. I wouldn't be surprised that when homosexuality was outlawed, a significant amount of homosexuality was things like child-abuse. By this standard alone, we have no right to restrict the freedoms of these individuals, because we have no good evidence, nor really very good reasoning, for it. And remember, what would you consider the necessary harm to society to say that interracial relationships should be outlawed? Is it if a lot of them end up in abusive dynamics? Even if it is 90%, in my view, it would be unjustified to outlaw these things, because again, we cannot use the law for every activity that could potential bring harm to society. And we are talking about abuse here, unhealthy relationships. While this is undesirable, it is nowhere close to things that undermine individuals will fundamentally, like rape, murder and arguably many cases of suicide. If there is no clear violation of the will of individuals, as is the case with rape, murder and so forth, or an activity which cannot be consented to, we need a very high standard to the risk of society, and clear evidence for such claims, to consider outlawing an activity and restricting the sexual freedom of consenting adults. There should be an awareness here of how significant of a violation to freedom it is when a state starts interfering with your choice of consenting sexual partners. Potential for abusive relationships, even if astronomoically high, cannot be the standard here, it would have to be a significantly higher cost to society, backed up by actual evidence. The only real restriction we make in terms who consenting adults can engage with sexually, is in professional relationships, where you basically make an oath to the duty of care, or the work environment regulates sexual activity in certain ways. Remember, individuals consent to that type of restriction when they enter these work places, and they can at any time leave that type of work place. You cannot simply do this to just consenting adults out of nowhere, becaue of risk of abuse or such things. We don't ever do this. And I guarantee you, being a pornstar is probably far more harmful to someone than being in an incestious relationship under the assumption that you are consenting adults, that the incest does not come with some sort of tremendous social cost via taboo (and even then you can argue when porn did come with that taboo, it was as harmful), and that you are not legally punished for it. And the worst part is even that, you outlawing this and creating a social taboo around this activity might actually lead to a prolifiration of abuse, rather than a reduction. Most incest, in the current societal context, will occur in child exploitation cases. The shame associated around the incest taboo could very well be a primary reason for why victims of such activity are so hesitant to come forth with their abuse and therefore cannot get the help they need. This case you are trying to make is just exceptionally weak. I understand why there is a desire to make this case, but it just doesn't appear sound to me. And this is just incest, we can discuss something like bestiality some other time. That is an even more interesting discussion because there we go into what informed consent is and what makes sexual activity in humans who are incapable of informed consent so problematic. There is an even more repulsive activity (and I am not talking about pedophilia) that is currently considered completely immoral and illegal, that is exceptionally difficult to argue for why it should be considered immoral and illegal. But if we can't even get past incest, we certainly won't have a productive conversation there. But these are the juicy moral discussions that I think get to the core of moral reasoning, and I think it is benefitial to have them.

When you look into the bigger picture of how laws should be made, it's not only about being how immoral it is, but also depends on the degree of suffering it now causes and may cause in the future and whether it affects others or the society or themselves. For example, murder, rape, theft, abuse etc. are punished severely in general, because it has a higher chance of causing suffering to the victims, to the society, as well as themselves.The extent of severity depends on how much suffering it brings. Things like drug usage have higher chances of causing suffering to themselves, and to the society, hence they are punished moderately. Suicide and self harm causes suffering mainly to the individuals and to some extent to the society and hence punished less severely to severely depending on how liberal the country is. In order to see whether incest fits in any of the above, detailed studies backed by science, psychology or other rational studies must be conducted in order to see how much it affects and what's the probability of affecting individual's happiness or suffering, and other's happiness or suffering, with more weightage to the latter. Even many countries are confused with homosexual laws especially those with a mixture of rational and traditional views, because they are worried that it may affect the society and even the individuals in some ways, although scientific and psychological studies point to the opposite. In the case of incest, there are no proper studies available at all to decide anything upon it, as even in this discussion we are not able to point out large scale,well made studies. When it comes to immorality, in my opinion, for the law making bodies, there is no need to judge anyone or anything good or bad, based on the actions, even if it's a murder or a rape and even if it's done with utmost selfishness. Immorality is not solely based on rationality, and is prone to large number of biases, and hence should be replaced by laws and compassion. When it comes to incest, my personal opinion is that, it is capable of causing more suffering to the society than what already is, and to some extent to the individuals.

This April 20th, the same day as a total solar eclipse I had a permanent spiritual awakening Ever since then, I would have these shifts and releases every single day It was an exciting process mostly but I had no idea that it was accumulating into an almost total wipeout of myself About a month ago pretty much all resistance in me was dissolved and it was like I started to melt into my environment. Reality and everyone lost almost all its 3D and realness. This was not temporary. This was permanently going in a certain direction. it was horrible Then from nowhere something in me was like “you have to push yourself”. So I started to do these little workout things. After pushing my body I noticed how there would arise a little sense of self Basically something in me figured out that when you push against resistance in physical training , it produces sense of self and thus all of reality as a consequence . And the intensity of the resistance is exactly proportionate to this sense of self so more resistance more sense of self. It’s very difficult for me to explain this. But ever since then I’ve been stuck in this cycle day in day out . Where I work out and it produces a little sense of self, then it starts to melt again and I have to go back again even harder. Yesterday for example I did three of David goggings live workouts in a row. It was hard. But I still feel almost non existent. It’s hard for me to explain my “pov” . But it’s like I’m almost headless and have to be constantly maintained. It sickens me to my stomach. My mind cannot possibly grasp what I’m going through. Basically , if I don’t absolutely torture myself- I will never reach reality. Im stuck in this cycle, this walking dead thing. And my ~only~ way out is a seemingly endless mountain of resistance. It is not possible to “surrender” to this. It doesn’t work like that. When my sense of self weakens even more it doesn’t feel like I’m the one driving my steps to do what I do. I am in such deep hell my mind cannot phantom it. I try to comfort myself with the idea of suicide as a possibility if it gets absolutely unbearable, but it doesn’t work because my ability to grasp that idea is dependent on the vague sense of self produced. When I was deepest in the void such an idea is so vague it brings no relief. To make myself clear. I am not crazy. Some context I’m 20 years old woman, been doing good all my life in school and all, work full time , fully functional like everyone else from outside perspective. Lived a very odd existence from my pov. Have had telepathy several times, as I said spiritual awakening etc. All of that came to me without much effort, but the one thing that doesn’t come without effort is literally all of reality. I believe few if any humans in history have gone through this. My mind cannot grasp this, it’s absolutely impossible. It tries and it sickens me to my core. As I’m writing this my sense of self is so extremely weak and it’s like I’m standing on a thin line. Don’t know why I am even posting when nothing barely feels real. Desperation

In the sense that it bitters my mind to the point of discouraging action, you’re right. But not when I’m out there on the battlefield. It’s not like I’m talking like this to my approachees, that would be suicide to progress. This is the place for theory, and right now my theory has lots of kinks it needs straightened out before I go back into practice. But I’m sure the intensity of the practice will lead me right back here. I think I sounded like a condescending prick about the wink thing. I really do like that idea though and am going to use it. Just to clarify

I totally get that. Hating yourself, while debilitating, is part of the journey. You’re put in situations that you never asked to be put in. You begin by learning how to handle these situations, and when you’re ready, you take the plunge and let go - trusting that you’ll be guided towards your higher purpose in life. What I am referring to is not suicide. It is serious personal and spiritual work. It’s not going to come easy, not a chance. Actually, it’s easier to stay in the cycle of loathing and self-hatred. But the cost of living like that is never allowing ourselves to embrace a more expansive aspect of ourselves. I wish you all the best, and I promise you that the pain and suffering is not permanent.

Proximity to Violence And here is that post (plus some more). I'm just going to talk about some of the things that I encountered over the past year. Almost Got into a Lethal Car Crash I was driving home from a date with my boyfriend back in March. As I was approaching downtown, there were a lot of heavy rain. It was sprinkling from where I left but as I got closer to downtown, the rain was getting pretty heavy. Anyone in the Dallas area knows that the highway downtown is really chaotic and confusing. You can't just take an exit and get out because the exits will route you towards other routes. My windshield wipers were on max but my windows were also getting fogged up from inside no matter what I did. I felt like I was driving on the highway half blind. On top of that, there was also part of my route that was dealing with a lot of flooding. I drove by 3 cars down town that were either broken down or crashed as I tried not to think of myself having a similar fate. I got out of the highway as soon as I could and parked next to a gas station. I called my dad and told him about this situation and that I pulled over to collect myself and that I'm going to take the long way home via service roads instead of getting back on the highway. The first thing I said was that I'm alright because I wouldn't be surprised if I made him jump considering the weather and how long it was taking for me to get home. I didn't want his first thought to be that something happened to me. About 10 minutes later, I started back driving home. I felt safer than when I was on the highway but I had a tense uneasiness in the back of my mind as I proceeded cautiously. My boyfriend normally messages me to let me know when he got home safely. I didn't get that notification yet and I knew that he should be home by now judging by where he is and where he lived. I couldn't help but wonder if something happened to him. I kept telling myself as I was driving that I don't know anything for sure. He might also just be fine. I tried to stay focussed and told myself "Hey, you can freak out once you get home and check your phone then, but now you need to focus on getting yourself home safely. You just need to hold on for 30 more minutes" Those 30 minutes felt like forever. I was tempted to speed up on these empty service roads since there weren't many cars present and because I wanted to get home and end this as soon as possible. But I kept going at a slow and reasonable speed because even though my impulses suggested otherwise, I knew better and I wasn't going to do something reckless just because I was anxious. I passed two more cars that were also broken down on the side of the road which served as an additional reminder to hold it together. I eventually got to a red light. It was a four land road, two on my side and two on the other, and there were 3 cars in right lane right behind me. As I was patiently waiting for the red light to turn green, I saw from the corner of my eye a car that was coming out of the highway that showed no signs of slowing down, much less stopping. When the light finally turned green, I did not move. The cars behind me started honking, irritated about the hold up because no one wanted to be in the storm and just get home as soon as possible. I stood my ground because regardless if I was right or wrong about the car speed from the highway, I'd rather bee a nuisance for 3 seconds than to deal with thousands of dollars in damages, or worse, get hurt or get another person hurt. And I was right. The car from the highway didn't stop and ran the red light. Had I gone, they would've either hit me or the car behind me in a high speed from the driver's side. Someone could have died. I tried to keep a calm and level head after all of this. I kept telling myself that I cannot freak out now and I just have to hold it together for 10 more minutes. I did just that and once I got home I called my boyfriend to make sure he was alright. He picked up the phone and I told him about my drive back, sobbing as I let myself feel the full extent of my fear and how terrified I was for my life from the time I got to downtown, to the cars that I kept seeing that were on the side after crashing into something, to the car that almost hit me at a high speed. All of this was on a Thrusday night and I still had work the next day. I forced myself to go to work and then I let myself process this situation over the weekend. ------------------------------------ The Allen Outlet Mall Shooting I did multiple posts on this matter but basically my friends live near the mall and my friend's uncle worked in the mall. That man saw everything. He saw people get shot and killed and knew one of the victims. Basically, I was 2 connections away from a mass shooting victim and that fucked with my head. ------------------------------------ The Suicide at the Gun Range I was catching up with a friend in August and she was telling me about some of the stuff going on in her life. She talked to me about how her boyfriend's friend has a few friends who work in a gun range. A couple weeks back, there was a sketchy looking guy who walked into the gun range and tried to kill himself. The bullet likely richoted off something and somehow hit one of the employees there who died instantly. My friend and her boyfriend went to the scene and saw his boyfriend's friend lying on the ground while his other friend was trying to give him CPR. I have met the guy who was giving CPR once and I met my friend's boyfriend and it just felt crazy that I met these people. I never met the victim but I know the people connected to the whole situation. The following days I felt shaken up by the whole thing. I was still dealing with the nightmares from the outlet mall shooting and I felt that this situation certainly didn't help. Once again, I was two connections away from a victim of gun violence. ------------------------------------ The Genocide in Gaza I have been writing multiple posts about this matter but I think shit got much more real when I realized that I'm like a 2-3 connections away from people who had to live under constant bombardment for an entire month. I'm going to include what I wrote previously here again. ------------------------------------ The Plane Crash I walked into a plane crash scene on November 21st, less than two weeks before I'm writing this. My boyfriend and I went to Target to get some things for my friend for her upcoming birthday. Afterwards, we were hungry and thought to get something to eat. I found a quesadilla place near by and we decided to go there. Once we got there, we saw like 5 cop cars and a couple of state trooper cars. My boyfriend and I were like *wtf that's really weird, I wonder what's going on.* When we got to the parking lot, we saw a bunch of people from the news and a small crowd of people trying to figure out what's going on. The air didn't feel tense as if someone got shot up but there was a lot of uncertainty. I saw a whole section of a building covered up as well as a small section covered up on the ground. My boyfriend jokingly asked if I thought that was a body but said that he doubted it because so many other things are covered up and there are many reasons why this would be so. We were just awkwardly laughing abou the absurdity of the situation since we just got here because we wanted some quesadillas. Then I went to go check if the place was still open because I was hungry and of course it wasn't. We figured that nothing in this area was open so we went to a near by Chipotle instead. Later that night, I saw on the news that a plane crashed in front of a near by nail salon and it destroyed the car parked in front of the building. This happend like an hour and a half before my boyfriend and I got there. While the building was damaged, luckily no one in the building or in the near by shopping area was hurt. However, the pilot died. I told this to my boyfriend and I was talking on the phone with my dad about this who called me to see if I was okay because he saw that this happened near by where my location was at. I felt a sense of shock wash over me. Did I actually see the body of the pilot covered up? Like bruh.. I was just trying to get a quesadilla and I ended up stepping into a plane crash scene wtf. And while this alone is kind of crazy, I started thinking about how I had a lot of connections to violent shit during this year. I could feel my brain try to kick in and find some sort of meaning and pattern from these situations because generally speaking, the brain likes predictable things because it gives it a sense of certainty which aids in survival. The world felt unpredicatable, crazy, and most of all unsafe. I still feel this way even though that sense of shock has worn off after a day or two. But it's still in the back of my mind the number of violent events I'm connected to and how wild that is for this one year which is why I decided to write about this as an effort to process things. I know that I have this mild form of secondary PTSD from the outlet mall shooting and I'm still dealing with the grief regarding the genocide in Gaza. I feel like dealing with this type of violent unpredictability from the almost car crash, to the plane crash, to shootings since they can literally happen anywhere. I wish I could wrap up this post with a nice bow but I suppose this is something that I'm grappling with and still unsure how to fully move forward or what to take from all of this.

Japan has its own cultural norms. Capitalism doesn't operate the same in every country. Moreover, Japan whiist being capitalist isn't Western culturally. Well not in the same sense that the USA, Canada, UK, or Germany are. There are still some vestiges of the old Meiji and Edo period ways, especially in terms of working attitudes and practices. Japan's working culture is more due to these long-held traditions and not what modern neoliberalism has taught them. The same attitudes relate to the suicide forest and other toxic parts of Japanese culture. It's modern neoliberalism that's taught Western countries to value work/life balance more, including flexible working. Many countries in recent years have mandatory maximum working weeks.

In psychology there is the observation that when suicides cases are presented to the public like when a star does it or when it happens in a play (for example the play: the sorrows of young Werther) people mimic it. Therefore showing suicide cases in films is widely banned or restricted in such a way that is shouldn't be shown in to much detail and to heroic/ epic. Of course all these restriction make sense as a first reaction. But in the big picture I think it may be a loss. If will bring people who are mentally very unstable over the edge. But for mentally more healthy people it shows them ways in which they could seriously slip up and therefore prepares them. So from a holistic/ long term point of view if could be a net positive to show suicide cases more openly. So holistically when do you think is showing suicide good, when is it bad?

For me there’s two types of suicide one is the one Leo talks about which is initiated by an impure mind and is done based on impure thoughts and out of whack emotions. another type of suicide is just done for the sake of it with no intentions of ‘ending suffering’ but just genuine philosophic contemplation of the unknown state of death and curiously wanting to experience and explore it. In other words, it’s done with a pure mind and not under the influence of your emotions.

Any idea guys. My mind constantly puts the image of negative hypothetical scenarios of future, how I will angrily react in the future etc. Also during these exam days I am feeling very bad.I also have anger inside me like how people didn't allowed me to date by saying to study and I will get arranged marriage(which I don't want),. I become extremely angry when I see a couple and here in college couples are present all around me and during studying also these thoughts race through my mind - everyone has a girl except me. Sometimes I think of suicide but then I think that life is precious- once gone then can never be rejuvenated. I have painful memories from past racing all the time . How could I overcome this because I see that I am doing ok in my career and I am answerable in classes much more than those who are dating(they cheat in exams whereas I live with integrity). How to climb out of this black hole ?

Tolle does a great work, instills in you an interesting idea about how the mind creates the appearance of an experience that takes place in time, about how the present moment is the absolute, but nothing more. He tells you: one day I wanted to commit suicide and the next day I was free of my ego. Oh, okay. That is of no use, he cannot teach you how to get out of the trap of the mind because he did not get out of the trap of his own free will, it was something spontaneous. The only advice he could give you to reach that point is: immerse yourself in a state of anxiety so horrible that you want to die, and then maybe your mind will free itself or you will commit suicide. that is of no use. Ok, now you know that the present moment is the absolute. That is important, but you have to find the way to break the illusion of temporality and be the absolute present, open yourself to the total existence of the now.