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@LossIf you like the life purpose course by Gura might be the very thing you need at this time, just to get your attention focused on that 1 thing. Again, if you take that path my advice is don't make it into a big deal, rather just make a deal with yourself that you're going to stick with it through the high's and low's and at the sacrifice of other things. But at the same time, acting like a suicide bomber or a high school shooter when it comes to your life purpose has real measurable positive effects when it comes to achieving the results you want in life. So its a paradox, there's this absoluteness to it and then there's this complete non-attachment, but if you imagine that dynamic as a mixing of shades of black and white there's a unique geometry to it that you don't want to mess too much with, its easy to miss it, but once you understand it and recognise it for what it is, you can use that kind of powerful force in your endeavour basically like no other

1. I mean I don't know the specifics of Biden's policies, but the fact that Trump still has not proposed an alternative to Obamacare after 3 years is a pretty clear indictment for me that he is not very smart policy-wise. 2. The performance of US economy was strong before the lockdown if you look at the stock market for sure. But be aware that while his tax cuts (which benefited the super rich for the most part) did help to boost the employment rates, the US historical data show that drastic cuts in taxes only work for a short period of time before the economic fatigue kicks in, and fundamental problems such as lack of funding to poor communities and public schools start to appear. And I am sure most people would not have blamed Trump for the GDP going down because of COVID. 3. I don't think I understand your point here. 4. Well his peace treaties might turn out well or not, but I think that getting out of the Iran deal is pretty stupid to say the least, and not very peaceful of him. 5. There is not any signs that the Democrats can do anything to the 2nd amendment. It's a political suicide if they try to touch that. At most, they might try to pass policies like better gun training or more strict background checks on a federal level. 6. I get what you mean by school choice, but the underlying problem here is that public schools are not getting the funds that they need. 7. Well as someone who grew up in China, I can assure you that most people do not even have the time to think about attacking other countries because life is busy. They are just happy that the country is stable enough to have a decent life. Sure, most chinese want to have a more cultural impact in the world (soft power), but hardly any of them are plotting the destruction of the rest of the world. Obviously, we all have to be vigilant against the CCP, but international politics is a lot more complicated than simply us versus them. 8.That is a really stretched argument to start with (fallacy of false correlations, and it is also funny that Trump inherited the booming economy of the Obama's administration and actually made it worse in many respects. 9. If by big tech censorship you mean banning conspiracy groups like Q then I don't know what to say. A reminder that these tech companies are private corporations who have absolute control over what are posted on their platforms. Last thing: And of course mainstream media reporting in general is biased because they are pushing certain narratives, but you have to also see through the hypocrisy of Fox News and far-right alternative medias. If you can't do that, then you are just as hypocritical as the medias you don't like.

Thank you all for so many amazing replies! I look forward to experimenting with the techniques & methods that people have recommended. I also would like to apologise for such a late reply to my own thread. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Fran11 1. I plan to do a deep exploration of the world of energy work, thanks! Any advice on places to start? Books, meta-sources? 2. Do you have any practical advice for dis-identifying with the I-thought? Would it look something like a mindfulness-based 'if-then' habit, i.e.: thought arises, such as a pre-verbal judgement or something with the word 'me'/'I' in it, & as soon as I notice it, I think this thought: 'this is not me/this is just an impersonal phenomena' & try to notice that e.g. by forcing myself to feel more like a listener of it rather than the active participant in thinking it? If my interpretation is misguided, how would it look like to dis-identify from the I-thought, moment-to-moment? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Moksha I will investigate all of these. I loved your explanation of Karma Yoga, it's about time I included more of this than just basic morality practices. Makes sense that if I'm going to do anything, it might as well be what I would do if I was identified with the whole. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- @RedLine Not yet. I'm brainstorming methods & trying to predict which will be the most effective. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @RendHeaven Firstly, thank you so much for this amazing reply & for taking the time to point out so much of the self-deception going on in my current thinking. I have only ever had one ego-death/enlightenment experience on psychedelics, which was terrifying, so I am still a novice in this area. I like this idea of personifying the psychedelics. In my next trip, I will take on the attitude that I am dealing with an alive teacher, as opposed to my previous/current more materialistic approach, where I only consider them as inanimate chemicals causing changes to my brain for the purpose of assisting me with MY motives, exactly like you said. No doubt, if I took such an attitude to learning with a human master, they probably wouldn't want to work with me at all. Makes me wonder if this old attitude contributed to me having such a challenging trip. I have contemplated this on many occasions since my first ego-death experience. Sometimes I like to do a thought experiment where I imagine that someone has a gun to my head & is about to pull the trigger. I try to make it as vivid as possible, to try to convince myself that it's really happening, then I try to accept my fate or imagine what I might actually do in this situation. Sometimes I think I can accept it, but usually, if I'm self-honest, I'm shit-scared & would try to do anything I could to escape physical death. I would never commit suicide (kill the body). What have you realized from contemplating this yourself? But how will I be able to make progress if I'm distracted by my thinking? Surely the rejection of certain parts of reality is necessary for any of this to work? Isn't doing this the lesser of two self-deceptions, with thinking/monkey-mind being the greater? Further, isn't the thinking that I wish to silence, ITSELF a form of self-rejection/rejection of the present-moment? When my mind is silent & I am in deep jhana, it feels like I can appreciate [everything] far more than when I am following along with some train of thought about the past or future, solving my problems, etc. I understand that I am acting hypocritical & unenlightened by choosing to silence the mind at the expense of other phenomena, but isn't this the lesser of two evils? You're 100% correct here, I am in pain & I see enlightenment as a way out, this is my main/strongest motivation in this work. Me no like suffering! P.s. Yes, the lords of the earth & sky bit was intended as comedic. Finally: What do you suggest I do instead? What has worked well for you? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @electroBeam What happened when you tried this? Do you have any theories as to what went wrong/why it didn't work? What's your story, Mr. Beam? Also, what do you do now instead that's more effective? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @SirVladimir Very cool reply & thanks for the headsup. It's true, I do goal-ify enlightenment probably more than I should. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Jonty I like this practice too, very relaxing

Some of these questions may not be worth answering, or may not be general enough, or only warrant short answers, or have already been answered and it's been too long since I re-watched The Dangers of Spiritual Work, or I didn't watch it closely enough. 1. What is Hell? Is it just causing a bunch of suffering for yourself in life and never waking up? Is it downgrading all of infinity into a joke on you by committing suicide or something? Is it some fiery place you go if you were a "terrible person"? or just a silly dogmatic belief? Cultural control mechanism? Helpful metaphor? What is Hell actualized? 2. Why me? Why do I, in this incarnation, have to literally be the next Christ and embody a life purpose to save the world / run for president / martyr for justice? (not me mikelyons, but just the "me" as whoever is asking this question, about what they think, they may be the only one who can do in this life to save creation/changetheworld) Is that just me being unwilling to quit whining? Is imagining life purpose that seems insurmountable or maybe is impossible just one of the dangers of spiritual work when you're not developed enough? 3. Is suicide only culturally disallowed? Is there any truth to society's aversion to it? Is having the courage to actualize life purpose the only real argument against it? Or is that also illusory and it's no better than any argument for or against anything? If infinity is infinite doesn't it include my suicide anyway? Infinite suicides? (no danger intended)

20 year old male here. 1 month ago one of my best friends from high school who I've known since I was 11 committed suicide. He was like a brother to me, so many good memories. School ended in 2018 for me, and we didn't stay in much contact with each other since then. We met a handful of times though, and every time I met him it was still great and amazing. My last proper encounter with him was a video call I had with him in June, for 3-4 hours. I ended up messaging him 2-3 days before he went missing and committed suicide, but the message was just me acknowledging that I saw him chilling on Spotify ( his account was online) and it was a very brief exchange. I regret not saying more or starting a conversation, and I regret not having been in contact with him more since school ended. He loved music a lot, was one of or his main hobby. Through his Spotify profile I can see the last few songs he probably ever listened to before killing himself. It haunts me in a way and makes me emotional. Thinking about his death, I feel very physically sick in my stomach and chest, sometimes cry. Today I managed to open myself a little more to the feeling in an honest/direct manner, turns out I have a lot of suppressed and conflicting emotions. I want to "move on" but I don't know what moving on means. And then I feel like if I "move on" too quickly, I would have killed or suppressed an important part of me. I'm also a hurt child throwing a tantrum, I want others to know the depth of my pain. Hence this thread. Any similar experiences here?

I am completely clouded by my emotions. My partner has complained about how I don't fully listen, and how I react emotionally when they try to speak objectively with me. This, although not at all a big deal, has been incredibly difficult, and has felt almost impossible for me to accept. I continue to deny and say, "that's not me", or cry profusely when they bring it up or get frustrated. This has a deeper meaning to my ego, as my partner has compared the behavior to his mother, which has lead him to wanting to commit suicide. Although he's admitted I am not to that extremity, it feels almost impossible for me to accept this criticism without an emotional reaction. I want to be nothing like his mother, however, the more emotionally attached I get, the less objective I become, therefore I play more into the behavior he despises. It also cycles back as it makes me incredibly worried when talking to him, (for fear of me not paying attention happening again) further clouding my head and making it more difficult to pay attention. I am also extremely attached to the beginning of our relationship, which he cites as me never behaving in this way before, and was actually one of the reasons we bonded in the first place (he enjoyed my objectivity, logical thinking, detachment from emotions clouding my thoughts, and how easy it was to talk and reason to me). This, ironically, makes me cry even more - as I feel I've completely lost that part of me, or he'll never see me in that light again. Or even worse, even if I do change the behavior, he'll always see me as an emotional wreck who can't handle objective conversation. I've brought up these concerns with him before, and he has stated that the more I repeat the positive behavior (listening more, not crying), the faster it'll all go away. He always reaffirms with me that I can fix this behavior, that it can all be a memory and won't impact my current character. But, this has been hard for my ego to believe - it always wants to tell me that I'm inadequate, not enough, and I've completely ruined everything. And I believe it. I'm just struggling with what exactly I need to do to stop this behavior. I was locked in my home with my very emotional, anxiety-run family for 6 months (they feared covid-19 to the point of self-quarantine), 2 months ago, I left to live with my father, out of being driven to near insanity. We both believe this lowered my IQ substantially, and made me way more emotional and irrational. Now, I'm still having trouble thinking clearly, or even narrowing down what exactly is bothering me. It feels my thoughts are behind a dim cloud. My rational feels completely obliterated, and I'm having trouble accepting this situation without attaching it to "you make him suicidal, you're too stupid to talk to, you've completely ruined everything.." etc. I can't accept the situation logically, without destroying myself and making myself miserable in the process. I compare myself to his ex's, to my past self, I think of false positives like "if I wear this shirt, I'll be more like my past self". I'm completely illogical. Even if I start to work on it, my mind will tell me "his ex never had to do this, you're so pathetic, he'll never love you like he loved her". If anyone has any tips on this, I would be really happy to hear. This behavior and cycle has been going on for about a year, and I'm sick of it. It's been making both of us miserable. I just really want to be able to accept that I'm a person who has made him miserable, without attaching it to feelings of inadequacy, never being enough, and always being stained by this past. Thank you so much.

Not to boast or anything, just for another perspective, I got onto this path in college, dropped out of college, had 2 jobs (a very stressful startup part time and a very stressful full time job) for 3 years straight, and did this path hardcore. Then realised my college and 2 jobs and everyone around me was me. And if it wasn't for my job, my spiritual path wouldn't have taken off, because it was the experience of my very stressful job, breaking up with my long term GF, which pulled the inner demons out of me. I nearly committed suicide 3 times after dropping out of college, 1 time my startup nearly failed, girlfriend broke up with me, and I lost my job(was living by myself because parents were disappointed that I dropped out of college and kicked me out). A day after that experience, I had a huge awakening, and was very very receptive to a whole new way of looking at the world, and also to a certain new teaching that the mod above exposed me to. There's no better opportunity to really see what hidden karma you have inside of you then to go through demoralisation, ridicule, nearly loosing your job, depression, anxiety and loads of fear. This path has never been a separate thing to my career or relationships, and I've never understood why people see it that way, maybe there's a very good reason for it, but your career (if it really pushes you) just compliments your practices and helps you deconstruct yourself. If I didn't have a very stressful life, I'm over 9000% sure my spiritual journey would have been 3 years behind it is now. Because I wouldn't have had the opportunity to really test what I'm made of.

We need a better way to differentiate between the vegan diet with vegan ethical position. Its a source of confusion. Can we think of another way to define the ethical position? Ok by this definition i am a vegan who eats meat. Im honestly genuinely asking, is there a shadow here? How passionate are you on these talking points and how much do you want this? I fully agree with what you are morally saying, but this cant be used as a focal point guiding this inquiry. We need to examine all facets independently. We established the ethical facet, now lets tackle the rest, really openly with out baggage from the other facets. Then we can weight and compare each facet and explore realistic solutions. This feels like im suspected of committing a crime and being asked to prove my innocence. In an ideal world eating animals is a against the law? I understand the perspective... but this is a mistake, the other facets will reveal this. Was vegan for 10 years, got really sick (not saying it was the fault of the diet), was forced to start eating meat, the alternative was suicide. We would not be having this conversation if meat was illegal. Maybe there was a way to avoid this but i did not fined it, specifically because Health Care has become a business. A important facet to be explored! The logic works only if this premise holds true: The vegan diet is completely effortlessly tolerated for 99.9% of people. The premise is wrong. It becomes clear when we really dig into it. The space is complex with many shades of grey. From a vegan ethical position it would mean sacrificed health for many people. A trade off. Maybe this is something you agree with, minimizing suffering overall. But i disagree. Ideally we grow meat in lab or some other sciency solution, but we shouldn't rely on this.

I had a desire to write a story about an arcade snake. I love playing snake, but the game reminded me of something beyond just the game itself. And so I wrote about it. A little snake, just 1 pixel long, was doing some therapy work after years of bullying. The 1 pixel snake since he was a kid, loved tails, and seeing how big snake tails can get. He went to university to be a tailsman, where he learnt different methods for measuring different tail sizes of different snakes. Each assignment though, started getting more and more repetitive, and the snake lost interest. He went into more therapy work for his bullying. As he went into therapy work, he noticed a video on the internet from snakilized.org by a weird snake without any hair. This snake seemed to have a very long tail, and he made a video called the most shocking tail measuring technique you'll ever hear. He talked about this amazing possibility of growing your tail so long that it covers the entire universe(arcade game). But he said you have to play 'the game' called 'the snake game'. A game with a whole range of different levels, different gemstones you have to collect, different boss battles, weird levels that seem to twist and turn as you progress through them, different ways of knowing how long your tail is and how to get it longer, different ways to go faster or slower or manoeuvre around the game to get your tail longer faster. Wow, I've always been interested in tails, but never thought you could actually make your tail grow longer! That's university x1000! The hairless snake said "to grow your tail longer, you have to enter the first level and collect all the contemplation gemstones, there's a map that shows you where to get them, but be warned! Growing your tail longer is about collecting the contemplation gemstones, not about dreaming about how long your tail is on the map!" So the little snake went over to level 1, and collected his first gemstone. But his tail didn't grow any longer! So he went and collected the 2nd gemstone, but still his tail didn't even get an inch longer! Collected the third...4th...5th... his tail wasn't getting any longer. He looked at the map again to make sure he was collecting the right gemstones. Then he noticed there was a gemstone that looked like tail! And thought "Those must be the right gemstones!" So he went over to those gemstones and ate them... but again no longer tail. So he thought "what if I'm not meant to be eating them, but attaching them to my body!" So he went over and started attaching them to his body and it worked! His tail was getting longer, then he had an even cleverer idea "what if instead of going to each gemstone, I just cut them out on my map and stick them on my body! That way I don't have to walk over to them!" So then he went and cut out all the gemstones on the map and planted them on his body, his tail was getting very long now! Then he had another amazing idea to draw himself on the map and to draw his tail getting longer. Now he's figured out how to have a long tail! This works very well! He kept drawing and drawing and... "Slap!" The hairless snake smashed his map and all his planted tails on the ground. And just in a millisecond, the little snake was back to square one, same length tail. This left the little snake depressed because he really thought he had a long tail. "I warned you to not get caught in the map" the hairless snake said, but the little snake didn't listen. The little snake then slowly started collecting the meditation gemstones, with a depressed look on his face, because his tail wasn't growing longer at each gemstone collected. He wondered whether growing a long tail is for him, or whether he should just be like the other 1 pixel snakes. This gemstone collecting life is too hard. He stopped collecting gemstones for a while and went to the party levels, and career levels for a while. Then 1 morning he woke up, and noticed his tail was slightly longer. "OMG this is amazing!" The little snake thought, and just like that was back at the contemplation level to collect more gemstones. But there was a downside, each contemplation gemstone collected, the world started changing colours slightly. Everything seemed to get slightly more green. It was a bit disturbing, but the little snake ignored it. The hairless snake made a new video called "the dangers of collecting gemstones" where he talked about how the gemstones do make your tail grow longer, but they have awful side effects of changing the colour of the world a little bit and making it a bit fuzzy. The snake ignored the fuzziness, and kept growing his tail. His tail had a beautiful array of different aspects to it, a tail about vibrant looking trees, another about vibrant looking nature, another on less anger, and another on more peace. Each aspect was 1 cell or pixel long of his tail. Then the hairless snake introduced the little snake to something called duality and non duality. Non duality is when you can grow your tail by seeing how you can eat different aspects of the world, like the grass and trees, and turn those things into your tail. Duality is seeing how your tail is different to those things and can never be eaten. Apparently everything can be eaten, but that idea turned the little snake off, so he just focused on how the good things can be eaten like candy and the trees and the grass. The little snake didn't want to eat the mud and mush and algae and moss, and Trump, etc. who knows what that will do to his body and tail? The little snake went to level 2 and started eating the trees, but not everything else. His tail grew a bit longer but not much. He tried eating more and more trees and grass, but his tail only got slightly longer. He ate and ate and ate, more and more and more, but the tail didn't get much longer. The little snake started getting depressed, thinking that he wasn't spiritually talented enough to grow his tail any longer. The hairless snake said "you have to eat the moss too! Not just the stuff you like!" So then the little snake ate the moss, and BOOM! His stomach swelled up massively. The moss took over his stomach and gave him a massive stomach ache. The little snake got so angry at the hairless snake, saying that the hairless snake is making him go crazy and screwing up his life. But as the swelling went away, all of a sudden the snake's stomach grew tolerant to the moss, and the snake could eat all of it! By this time the little snake's tail was getting very long, now with different aspects of the world attached to it, like moss, algae, grass and trees, it was on its way to be infinitely long. Then the hairless snake introduced the little snake to more levels of the game. And each of these new levels had a different way of measuring how long your tail is. The first mega level was the no tail level, where you can measure the tail by how much space is inside it, then the infinity mega level, where you can measure the tail by how many atoms are in it, then a very cool level called the God measuring level, where you can measure the tail just by feeling it and being it, and then the Love level, where you can measure the tail by how much love you feel for it. The little snake ran to the no tail level, and tried to see how its tail had space in it. But... it was solid, not spacey at all! The little snake tried using a magnifying glass, but couldn't see any space in it. He then looked at the map for a no tail snake, and saw that the tail had all these holes in it, like a net. So the snake got a net and put it around his tail, but it was still solid. The snake ran up to the hairless snake and asked him how to get it done. The hairless snake said it cannot be communicated, so take psychedelics so that you can feel how its done. The snake then took some psychedelics, but then the psychedelics started cutting his tail. "Nooo!" Screamed the little snake "I've been working so hard to grow my tail so long, you can't just cut it off!". But the psychedelics kept going, cutting away at his tail, this is what's known in the arcade game as a "bad trip". After the psychedelics were taken, the snake got traumatised. The little snake again got very angry at the hairless snake "How could you make me take that! I nearly lost my tail!" Then very confusingly the hairless snake said "to progress onto the next level you need to loose some of your tail". The little snake got confused and so looked at his map again, and it didn't look like loosing his tail. But the little snake continued, trying to cut his tail to see what would happen, and at every cut his vision got horribly blurry and everything started going green. So he stopped, but then tried cutting again, and the same thing happened! So he gave up and just enjoyed himself in the career and relationship levels again. But then a pulse of energy went through his brain and started cutting his tail. He started freaking out, thinking he was going to loose his tail and loose his mind. He tried stopping the pulses but it didn't work. He ended up in the hospital fearful that he developed a bad disease. The doctors told him he was fine though, and so confusingly he left the hospital and walked home. But as soon as he left home, that massive pulse of energy came up again and started eating at his tail. He tried running back to the hospital, but it was too late. The energy went up and up, cutting away all of his tail. Just as the little snake was about to cry to death, the energy stopped, and surprisingly his tail was still there, but now it looked like a net shape! "Wow just like the map!" The little snake excitedly said. The snake tail was so empty that it covered all of the air of the video game. It became so large and the snake got so excited. The snake started feeling it, it was so close to having a tail the entire size of the video game itself. He just had to go through those couple of levels and then he's done. So he went through the infinity level, where he was tasked with eating every single atom in the game, not just the big objects like moss and algae. As he was eating all the atoms in the game, he started to notice, that he couldn't tell the difference between different objects anymore, because they were all atoms. And then a very scary experience happened, He saw his tail, and then saw the atoms that he was eating, and for a split second couldn't tell the difference between them because they were both the same colour... green! He freaked out because he nearly lost his entire tail. He went up to the hairless snake and asked him about his scary episode of nearly loosing his tail. The hairless snake said "don't worry about it, just focus on feeling". And so the little snake did, but as he did that, his tail started looking like the stuff he was eating even more. The little snake freaked out, worried that he was about to loose his entire tail if he keeps going. And all of the work he's built up to. He looks at his map, and tries to see his map happen in real life. He notices how his map has cool waves on it to signify the God level of tail. and he tries to see those waves as a way to ensure his tail doesn't disappear. And that keeps the tail in tact. He now can feel his tail and it feels just like what the map said. Lucky he didn't lose his tail and everything he's worked for and he just went a bit insane for a little while. Then the snake moves onto the love level, the final level before his tail encompasses the entire game. The love level is the level where you eat the light that the game emits. And so the little snake starts getting that light and eating it. But as he eats that energy, he again notices that the light is all green, everything he is eating is completely green. The little snake starts freaking out, because the little snake cannot tell what he's eating anymore. He can't even feel the food enter his mouth anymore. How is he going to grow his tail to the maximum length if he can't even feel the food enter his mouth anymore? The little snake goes to the hairless snake to tell him what's happening. He tells the hairless snake how everything he's eating is the same and he can't feel it enter his stomach anymore. The hairless snake says that its fine, and that its true, there are no differences. The little snake freaks out exclaiming "but how will I grow my tail to the size of the universe if I can't even eat anymore!" The hairless snake just says "That's all a story, don't listen and keep eating". The little snake starts thinking that this hairless snake is an idiot. Clearly if he can't eat anymore he can't grow his tail anymore. Then the hairless snake looks at all of the levels and the game and they all look like green light. The contemplation gemstones like like the eating chips gemstones, and level 4 looks like level 1. The game just looks like 1 big green wave of energy. The little snake starts to get depressed, he built his entire life around making a very long tail, the size of the universe, and now he can't even tell the difference between the different levels. The no tail level, God tail level, Love tail level, all look the same, and the contemplation gemstone looks like all the other gemstones, and all the food looks like the rest of the food, which looks like the levels, which looks like the gemstones. And then he looks at his tail, and his tail looks completely green, just like the entire level. The little snake gets deeply deeply depressed, because how he can't even tell the difference between the different aspects of his tail, like the peace part, and the vibrant trees part, and the no mind part, and the god consciousness part, it all looks like the level, and he can't even tell if he has a tail. What if he never had a tail before? And he just thought he had a tail? He realises that all of his tail was made up. He looks at his 1 pixel snake friends who didn't even start the game in the first place, and just noticed how his tail is the same length as theirs... 1 pixel. He starts regretting ever playing the game in the first place, just thinking it was a massive ego trip, and he's no better off then his 1 pixel friends. From being so depressed, he goes into his green house, into his green kitchen, gets his green knife, and as he is about to put his green knife in his body, he notices that his green knife is the same colour as his green body, and that committing suicide wouldn't do anything. He then sees how the entire universe is 1 big green tail, and that he cannot tell the difference between his body and the world. As if he had a green tail that was the size of the universe. Literally no distinctions. Absolutely no distinctions at all. EDIT: and then a few days later, the snake realised that he never went through the game, he was always the game itself, and he made the game just so he could fall in love with himself. ?????????????????????????????????????????????? the snake designed the game precisely to maximise the amount of love he could give to himself. All those tough times, all those wacky experiences, all the times he was lost but also the times that he was excited, motivated by progress, in awe, all those times was just so that he could fall in love with himself as much as possible, and all along he didn't go through those experiences, he was those experiences.

What about to eat vegetables? You need first deforest the earth, destroy a lot of animal wild life, transport the food, etc. The best solution to avoid that would be a collective suicide. In other hand, a chicken in a good ecological farm have a good life. Better than most of the humans. Eat, sleep, stay with anothers chickens, no worries. One day he dies...what to do? Not bad for a reincarnation. A fish the same, born to die, like all beings on the earth, but when he's living, I think he's enjoying every second, not like the poor sads humans, born to figth with the karma. Life is hard. When you, or me, are fighting to breathe in the bed of an hospital for weeks maybe we get jealous of the destiny of a fish. It's useless to protect the life, if I could choose, I'd prefer a world without medicine, without any security, where death is everywhere. Better than this world of naive lies, where people think that life should be preserved, and it's impossible. Life born to finish, and it's not sad. Sad is to try to avoid that

S.A.D. It started with looking at the grey sky and the lack of color and noticing how ugly everything is. I don't like the buildings here in this country, why is everything so flat and boring? Then I had a lot of anger come up from past events. I told my friends about who from my old high school I would like to go back to and beat up, and why. I was not yet aware of the cloud of negativity that had cast a shadow over my reality. Adding to that, my friends started to get snappy and I began to feel attacked by them. When I got out of the car, I realised what was happening. My head was just buzzing with dark thoughts. Dwelling on things people had recently said in the past days and getting unreasonably angry over them. Repeating scenarios over and over in my mind. No light. No hope. I impulsively drank the psilocybin tea I had left, thinking it would be a nice way to relax. Wrong. I took a shower, enjoying the warm water whilst at the same time having very morbid and bizarre insectscapes on the inside of my eyelids. I toweled off and collapsed on the bed. I felt absolutely hopeless. Alone. Desperate. It really is like staring into an abyss and realising it is bottomless. I desired to cling on to someone and hold them while I cried, but remembered the last time I tried that, and driving people away with my neediness and despair. So I put on sad music and cried by myself, like an adult, for hours. I eventually mentioned to my date what I was going through. She immediately offered to come have dinner at her place, and look at her daylight-therapy lamp together, which was really sweet. I felt like I'm a terrible person for using her, because I'm afraid she thinks we're exclusive, something I haven't addressed for too long. I manage to get myself there, red eyed but happy to see her. We have long conversation, laugh a lot, eat dinner, and have sex. I feel too weak to be on top, so we have a more slow and deep session, which felt very connected and intimate. She squirts buckets. I love that. She is not happy about the wet mattress. The next day I decide to immediately get myself one of those daylight lamps, and I succeed. I can't slip back into a season of depression, I just can't. When I woke up this morning, I felt this familiar pit of anxiety and hopelessness in my stomach. I turned off my alarm and set it for later. Turned it off again. Crept back into bed again. Why get up? There's no hope. Last week I felt optimistic about becoming an entrepreneur. Now it's like that was a person from a movie, and I can't even remember how they even imagined such a thing was possible. I have a strange urge to research morbid topics, like how suicide pills work and what's in them. Not because I'm having suicidal thoughts, to be clear, but just the sudden morbid curiosity is weird. I suppress that urge because giving in would most certainly make it worse. My whole body is vibrating with angst and all crumpled up. My posture is slouched, making myself small, hugging my arms around myself and hanging my head. My hands are sweating and shaking. I feel unreasonable doubt and anxiety about everything I do. I want to eat a healthy amount, but I just stuff myself to fill the anxiety pit. If I were to meet my date right now, I am not sure I would know what to say to her. I don't feel manly, or entertaining, or positive. I'm just a trembling vat of doom and gloom. Putting a smile on the outside would probably look creepy. Obviously, this can not continue. I've been though winter depressions all my life, and it took me a long time to recognize it for what it was. It makes me feel like everything I am doing with my life is pointless. Every time I quit studying it was during these months. Who knows what else got ruined by this radical reconfiguration of my emotions. I wanted to document it here, what it feels like. So I can refer back to it later, and remind myself to not take my state of happiness for granted. Because the weather can change. And all the health habits that I do, the supplements I take, the workouts, the things I don't eat - they seem silly sometimes, but I put them there to protect me. I will dedicate this week to cleaning up a LOT and getting back into my groove. Getting organised, getting exercise. Next week, I will be done with this. Protocol for the next month: Daylight lamp St. John's Wort supplements No more bread and processed food Lots of exercise Vitamin D, Copper and Zinc Make progress on main goal every day

That is really interesting. I’ve found there are actually animals that do commit suicide, but only from a hive mind, or you might say, collective standpoint. For example, there are insects that trigger their own organ failure, and like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly they melt into a substance which aids In the defense of the hive like fly paper. There’s even a parasite that takes over a host’s nervous system and then purposefully gets that animal eaten by it’s prey so it can infect an even bigger host, for the sake of the ‘collective’. Apparently humans are the only animal that can mistake a thought to be an individual self, and perception to be of individual animals. That made me wonder if creation, or, experience, would be better if humans just had hive mind. But honestly, hive mind sounds rather bland & boring. Maybe the ideal situation would be to both experience individually & experience individuals individually, but also have some kind of underlying hive mind bond or something going on too. That made me wonder if maybe the highest intelligence could be that underlying bond, experiencing being individuals, for the sake of the experiencing. If so, some kind of grounding like that would be nice because, I don’t know about you but this place is crazy. Then I wondered about the op and thought what if aliens aren’t visiting per se simply because they don’t want covid, or us eating them too. I am suspicious that the highest intelligence would have the experience, or, creation ‘itself’ in mind. I also suspect there is some sort of ‘underlying bond’ which could be ‘realized‘, and be the experience that is the apparent individuals which seem to have “hive mind”. Then of course I wondered what if aliens have “hive mind”. Again, this place is nuts. These are just some perspectives. Idk.

Do we know of written instructions on how to leave the body consciously on the internet? I'm picturing maybe a book like the JC Stevens' one. I think it may be possible to leave the the body consciously by stopping to breath after a period of hyperventilation as I noticed that after hyperventilation I can hold my breath much longer. That combined with being willing to give up breath definitely and maybe other instructions with the rest of the body and preparation may do the trick. This would basically be the instructions on how to perform Mahasmadhi, whether it's an ecstatic process or no is another matter. Such document would be of utmost importance for mankind because I'm seeing all these threads about assisted suicide but this would be the most responsible way to leave the body rather than breaking the body by suicide or assisted suicide.

RECAP Problem, challenge, obstacle Feeling depressed, suicidal, negative thinking of sufferable effort (Ego stories and games?) Having to suffer through work, grind, assignments in college Having to suffer through sufferable effort in general (throughout my history and life, although this may be a common problem) The "actual" (?) problem of Sufferable effort How do you solve sufferable effort? Solutions (Direct Methods) Outlook, perspective, optimism Consider your perspectives aren't necessarily the highest perspective Eliminate (or be careful of) nihilistic, pessimistic points of views, beliefs (on effort, sufferable effort, life, etc.) Incorporate/understand positive, optimistic, differing perspectives, points of view (on effort, sufferable effort, life, etc.) Be careful of the ego's stories Stop, eliminate, be careful of victim mentality, Don't be close-minded, don't give up, always try to find a solution, be a problem-solver, be a fighter, be a creator Don't overcomplicate it, Don't ruminate to much Pondering, contemplation, journaling Ask yourself question, question your beliefs, perspectives, interpretation Try to enjoy your current work, see what aspects you love Make the best of current work, effort, try to enjoy current effort/work Consider using supplements/drugs, consider using music, high energy music This can be ineffective if it is high level, high difficulty, a certain level difficulty of intellectual work Take breaks Work in teams and groups Consider, explore other types of work, ways to acquire basic needs Consider Part-Time work, minimalistic lifestyle, low-expense minimalistic lifestyle Choose a job (college or manner of creating money for basic needs) that is less stressful and suited to your needs Consider a trade Take a break, try something different, a physical job where you can have high energy with drugs/supplements and music Financial Freedom / Financial Independence Reduce expenses/liabilities (affordable housing, pay down debts) Create additional sources of income Find ways to be efficient Find ways to create efficient value, create immense value while being efficient, ultra-efficient Pursue what you love, find your passion, high-level interests If you love what you do, you won't feel like its work Make a living doing what you love, with enjoyable effort Awakening/Enlightenment, Dis-identify from the mind, Liberation from the mind It is speaking on your behalf and causing untold misery Self-experimentation Experiment with the solutions offered, experiment with your own solutions, experiment with solutions, experiment Acceptance, Understanding That work, effort, the sufferable effort is an inevitable part of life Know that life is a shitty deal, life is a shitty deal for not just me but everyone, understand/accept that perspective, "Just deal with it" Stop being a bitch, stop being a pussy (Indirect Methods / Worthy Endeavors / Solutions to other, related problems) Seek help Engage in therapy Using your mind to change your perspective is futile for some people (especially for those who live in their head), you need to engage your emotions strongly as well Engage in energy work Understand meaning Question, ponder, contemplate, learn, research, think about, etc. meaning Be careful for meanings surrounding meaning Eliminate video games, sex/masturbation (maybe just limit sex?~), alcohol, too much sugar, too much food indulgence, consuming too much media (especially social media), too much recreational drugs (weed included), too much partying/gossiping Eliminate all lower consciousness activities All this shit numbs you and lowers motivation levels Focus on your health, neurotransmitters, eliminate, replace, fix badly functioning neurotransmitters Focus on experiencing joy Find ways to enjoy life Engage in fun activities Ideas/Perspectives Death may not be an option (due to reincarnation, having to restart, karma, etc.) Consider "sufferable", unpleasant after-death experiences due to suicide Consider taking suicide off the cards It may override your higher purpose Find and focus on your higher purpose People who live to old age often comment that the time passes crazy fast anyway This is how it is, welcome to the human world. You don't have many options. You either own a business or have a job. In both, you need to work. Most people know life is hard, people with the highest levels of self-love are not willing to passively accept common outcomes Pursue what you love, don't overcomplicate Love is the magic ingredient that makes work not feel like work. You only call it "work" when you don't love what you're doing, Consider that modern life may expect to much intellectual work from us Consider that physical work can be therapeutic It can be healthy, exercise See the benefits, see the positive You may just take a break from your work and come back, take a break and work on physical work then come back Some forms of financial agency/security/independence are liberating though it is easier said than done Finances can be hard to get right if there is no external source of support ?~~~ (Victim mentality?~) Surviving on part-time work might be a more achievable goal Not working may cause mental issues, not working may be suboptimal There may be a certain kind of lethargy caused by a lack of positive engagement with people and challenges If you are involved in the right goals, it may not be an issue Your mind frame controls you, you look at reality in one way, while not being conscious that reality is how you see it Your mind creates the problems in interpreting the world See the deceptive nature of your thoughts, Do not trust your thoughts That’s the beauty of advanced personal development and spirituality, that’s why I watch actualized.org videos You will understand how reframing can solve the problem, only when you realize how your current framing has created the problem in the first place Its not always about re-framing, sometimes its about practice, past-experience, skill, strategy Have a positive mindset, think like naruto, think like anime characters, never give up (but I think still investigate, it can't all just be baseless) The effort you put in depends on your creativity, level of creativity Consider that you are in depression, that this is depression Possibly start to fear "meaninglessness" Go back to stage orange, lower level, previous perspective and see how I would see myself from there ?~~ My country has the most opportunities for whatever work I want to be doing, my country has the best ratio of self-made? people across the world I seem to be complacent and I am spoiled by my country and the conditions I was born in It can be challenging growing up with privelege because you are given a lot of things that other's work their whole lives for, and you see the emptiness in them and other pursuits You may lack motivation because your life is too comfortable right now Why does one lack motivation if their life is to comfortable? Isn't the lack of motivation a problem which is uncomfortable? Isn't the lack of results a problem which is uncomfortable? Life may take on more meaning if someone depends on you, such as a pet, child or student Why might this be meaningful? Awaken, enlighten, More spirit in your life means more presence, joy and lightness Awakening will let you sink into effortlessness, awakening is ultimate laziness With awakening, there isn't anyone owning the pain/suffering, which is a quantum leap Consider whether you should awaken, go down the awakening route Know it is an option if all else fails Only truthful activities remain when one awakens Directed energy to sustain activity dissipates if there is no point, purpose, it is non-truthful activity, a non-truthful activity, All activities done on behalf of a sperate self will eventually fall away as one treads along the path What these activities are in your particular case is something you'll discover as you go Further Questions / Challenges What is effort? What is sufferable effort? What is enjoyable effort? What is sufferable vs enjoyable effort? Is sufferable effort inevitable? Is sufferable 'emotional labor' inevitable? Is there are solution to this problem? Is their a way to eliminate this problem completely? Is suffering inevitable? Can you actually solve the problem of "having to put effort in life"? How do you handle, deal with sufferable effort while you working on solutions for it? How do you deal with having to grind in college (How do you deal with the suffering from sufferable effort? (boring, uninteresting, grueling, sufferable effort/effortful homework, assignments, zoom calls, etc.?) How do you handle suffering? Do you just sit and suffer (or fight and suffer)? Do you have to suffer? Is suffering inevitable? Is the sufferable effort of life worth it? Is the sufferable effort to eliminate sufferable effort worth it? Do you have to do sufferable effort in order to eliminate sufferable effort? What is the point/purpose of it all? Is that question voided, based on false assumptions? What are the perspectives, outlooks, viewpoints surrounding this? Is there something I am missing? Is the idea, perception, feeling of doing, effort an illusion? What level (or progress) of awakening does one have to be to realize this? (Is this full awakening?) does one have to be fully awakened to realize this? How do you love what you are doing? How do you create a love for what you are doing? Can we just see the world however we want? Can we create whatever framing we want? Can we interpret the world however we want? Why do anything? Why is it important to challenge yourself? Why is it important to grow? Isn't this sense of accomplishment based of false meaning and untenable? What is personal truth? What is subjective truth? Isn't meaning just bullshit? Isn't all meaning just bullshit? What is meaning? How does one understand meaning completely? Is having no meaning bad? Is meaning-less bad? What is the point/meaning of meaninglessness? What are the implications of meaninglessness? Is meaninglessness a bad thing? What is meant by meaninglessness? Is all meaning untenable? Can you still hold meaning even if all meaning is untenable? How can you enjoy meaning if all meaning is untenable? If all meaning is untenable what the hell? Feel free to answer all or a few of the questions above. Feel free to share your perspective, ideas, comments.

Spirituality is not there for you to become dettached from your sense of humanity and inviduality. Please drop the notion that having an identity is an illusion and thus your desires and experience is somehow not good enough and should be trancended. You are a human. You have emotions and thoughts. These are unique to you. Your ego-identity is indeed a construct, yes. But it needs to be trancended and then re-integrated. Transgenderism is on the level of this human experience. It can not be transcended by awakening. Awakening won't make your desires go away. You have to find a way to allign your future with how you feel what is the best in your core, but you might not know it yet, so transitioning is not the best option for you to do right away IMO. First there has to be some exploration of your human self. Transitioning is something permanent. Once your reproductive organs are gone, you can't go back. Only after exploration of your self, and you still want it, it might be what you need. My perspective is that transgenderism is not genetic. There is no evidence to support this at all. Every born male is biologically designed to grow up as a male, but biology only goes so far. There has to be followed a certain developmental proces for boys in order to become men. If this developmental process does not happen in the way it is intented by nature, then there can be deviations in your gender identity. Every boy has a primary attachment with the mother. Then it has to identitfy with the father in order for him to claim his sense of maleness. There are studies and a lot of clinical observations that recognize a pattern of abusive and hostile fathers, and psychologically distant mothers (or mothers who are overindulgent). This dynamics between son - father can lead someone to reject the masculinity they represent, and thus fail to claim their own masculinity. So they disown their own body and strive to be the mother from whom they have seperated. In a lot of the cases, the mother was reported to be highly anxious and stressed in the period of formation of the boy, thus experienced as seperate. So who do they attach themselves with? Masculinity represents danger to the boy. You can imagine how attachment influences your identity, no? There is inherent conflict with one's sense of self when you consider the suicide rates of transgender people. Not to mention the psychological struggles they face. Your identity is not fixed. You can change. If you want though. If you can be happy by accepting this, then you don't have to change.

Sounds like someone is trying to convince you their perspective is objective, and this is not resonating with your actual experience that you and he each have only a subjective experience and perspectives. How you feel matters, not what someone else thinks about you. They have their own feelings, you have yours. To threaten you with my suicide do to your behavior is innocent and disheartening, yet is also extremely manipulative and a loud cry for help. I should be seeking help and clarity & addressing my feelings in that scenario, not blaming & threatening you. It’s like a kid at a party in which everyone will not bend to their will and do and act as they desire, so they threaten to leave the party, rather than addressing their own subjective perspectives and experience, letting go of trying to control everyone & everything, and having a good time. Relationship wise, it is never your job or responsibility to pay attention to someone else. Someone acting like a child does not actually make someone your child. The ‘objective perspective’ is not a perspective at all, it is love, and it is ‘coming from’ within you -it is not coming from him. This is not to say he can’t be or isn’t being loving, just that the love you feel is not literally coming from anyone or anywhere - but within you. If you have attached to thoughts & perspective that it is coming from him, then you might misinterpret the feeling of fear (of losing him and therefore the love) when in truth, that feeling is the very love, sort of saying “wtf though? I’m right here for you sweetie, I am always right here for you!”. Take time away from him and reconnect within emotionally. It sounds like you’re ‘in so deep’ you can’t see the forrest from the trees. Get out of the forrest for a bit. Be careful as well, not to pull a reversal and blame him for any of this. That is only staying in the forrest and pretending you are not...continuing to attach the love you are to him, trying to make him understand, or apologize, etc. You can love him and love yourself, wether you are in a relationship with him or not. The more love you give, the more love you are experiencing & feeling. You can love so much there isn’t even really a you and others anymore. Just the love. Though I think all of that love, for now, really should be just for you. It is in fact what healing is. Allow it. Receive it. Let go of ‘barriers’, and like a helium balloon, love floats of it’s own accord - inherently, intrinsically, automatically. He could use sometime out of the woods as well, to know the tree he is. How he feels is not contingent on your behaviors, though it sounds like he very much believes it is, and that you have convinced yourself of this as well. Why believe what feels terrible? Why ignore the feeling, and believe the thoughts? For him? For your well being? Believing other people dictate or determine how you feel, is bothering you, because they don’t. The very ‘bothered’ feeling is the source of you, listen to that. Then don’t continue trying to force ‘logical acceptance‘. You are not responsible for how he feels. You are responsible for how you feel, act and behave - no one else. Stop ‘destroying yourself’ to make someone else appeased. You will never be able to get poor enough to make someone else rich. You will never be able to get sick enough to make someone else well. You will never be able to ignore feeling enough for someone else to have clarity. He must look within himself and understand what’s going on too. You are in fact completely logical. You’re just ignoring your feelings by placing his above your own, and experiencing directly that this doesn’t work. The next time you notice you are comparing yourself to his ex’s or to your past self....stop and point to these two things you believe you are comparing. Point to you, and point to his ex or your past self. You will see in your direct experience that you are you, and you are not actually making any comparison, with any actual thing, at all. Then, laugh, and enjoy the release of it, in the recognition of how ridiculous doing this has been. You’re creating your own suffering by trying to accept that, because it isn’t true. How he feels is always up to him, not you. Obviously, you have your own feelings, and therefore can deduce this logically. “I just really want to be able to accept that I'm a person who has made him“ = “I want to know the infinite creator, the unconditional love, that I truly am, the make of all things”. Consider reading up on codependency, enablement, self esteem, and the healing properties of human tears. Make a dreamboard. Put everything that comes to mind, that you want to have, do, be, and experience in your life, on the board. Maybe a relationship with him is on that board, maybe it’s not. But in doing so, in and only in the direct experience of doing so, you have rightfully, logically, and emotionally, placed your own love, healing, and well being first. If my kids & I fly somewhere, every single time, like clockwork, before that plane takes off, the flight attended is going to tell me - “if the shit hits the fan on this flight & those oxygen masks drop down from the overhead - put your oxygen mask on first - before you help your kids”. You are not much help to him, or yourself, or anyone else - all hunched over & passed out.

@AlphaAbundance Yes, the higher perspective is enlightenment/liberation or whatever one wishes to call it, but it is important to distinguish the mental idea of enlightenment with the actual experience. In simple terms, you distinguish the Self that is looking out through your eyes right now from the noisy little human self that is always grappling with problems to do with past and future. Only the present consciousness is real. This would change your entire outlook as you can imagine. Having more insights from the higher intelligence might give you a newfound purpose of some kind, or you might still prefer to chill out. There's no right or wrong, except be true to yourself. Owning a home and having basic living costs covered is incredibly liberating, though is easier said than done unless there is access to a substantial sum. Even then, there can be all sorts of restrictions around money for everyday living and it can get depressing. As for mental issues, there can be a certain lethargy caused by a lack of positive engagement with people and challenges. But if you are involved with other goals, that would likely not be an issue. But the finances are hard to get right if there's no external source of support. Sometimes I say that surviving on part-time work is a more achievable goal. Many near-death experiences end because people are told by higher powers that their mission here is not complete. If someone dies suddenly, even if by 'accident', it means their mission was complete. We are not all guaranteed to live 80 years. Suicides often have less pleasant after-death experiences because we are overriding the higher purpose when our minds make the clinical calculation that living is more painful than dying. My best advice is to take suicide off the cards and instead focus heavily on that higher purpose. People who live to old age often comment that the time passes crazy fast anyway. For your last question, the error is in thinking that the suffering is caused by situations. Some masters have lived the most mundane lives, and been in bliss the whole time. They feel joy in even the dullest of chores. It is hard to even imagine or describe it, and it is something antithetical to the ways of Western society and its consumerism, competitiveness, etc. Personally I love the pure and direct teachings of Ramana Maharshi, but there are other worthy teachers also. I hope this helps!

Yes you might be depressed and suicidal, but is it justified? What other reason besides thinking and feeling like it do you have? There are souls without arms and legs having to survive day by day just like you. There are adults who have to work all week just to feed their children, and there are others who have lost their whole family, seen their family get killed, had to find refuge alone in a foreign land. Life can be fucking hard. And I too want to die every now and then. But when it gets to serious I have to reflect and stop feeding this weak Ego of mine that thinks it has the hardest life out of them all. Why am I not strong enough to continue? This is tough love, but realize you have it so much better than a lot of people, no matter your situation. Alone that you have peace and time to contemplate suicide should make you feel grateful.

@Lyubov yea that suicide thing was his awakening.. Strange how people get awakened.

yeah exactly. I think his suicide forest thing really shook him out of a really low conscious paradigm. He really felt the backlash from that and saw first hand the misery of someone taking their own life and it really shook him to grow. You can tell he is quite worried about his brother when he talks about him but knows he isn't in control of another person and can only let them live their own life and learn.

I'm not advising anything to anyone. Merely pointing out the mechanisms preceding homosexuality. You have to realise the difficulties these people often face. There's a high % of homosexual men relative to heterosexual people that try to commit suicide because of their internal struggle with their sexual orientation. Homosexuality is fine, and if you are happy with it, why change? But it is just so that homosexuality is in most of the case a compensation for their trauma based identity. These people often struggle with shame, self-esteem issues, low self worth, perfectionism, depression, anxiety. The homosexuality is not the problem. It's the underlying identity issues that are and the implications on their life. I'm not saying it is the only cause and I don't think genetics can by itself bring out the condition. You can have a predisposition to emotional vulnarbulity or prenatal hormonal imbalances, and then you can say genetics can contribute, but I don't think there has been found a gay gene yet lol. The problem with the LGBT movement and how the people involved preach that acceptance is the only way, is what distrubs me. If people with homosexuality who feel like it is not their core identity go to therapy, they get to hear that acceptance and letting go is the only solution. These people are heterosexual in their core, but this is burried deep inside the person. They want to have the normal heterosexual identity, the one of having a family, a house, garden, childeren. The social stigma adds to the emotional burden as well. The shame that is associated with it, leaves onself hiding his 'authenticity', leaving the person feeling isolated from his environment. Some people have it easier and can accept that as part of who they are and go on with their life. For the people in the group I'm talking about, It's sometimes not an option. There was a topic of someone here on the forum who was clearly fighting the desires because he felt it was not his core identity. It's a problem for me that public biases are limiting the healing opportunities for wounded individuals. Also the theory that homosexuality is genetic is a problem. It limits further investigation into the more significant contributing factors for example family dynamics and so homosexuality can not be prevented. It's best to be prevented if possible because of the issues that often come with, both socially and psychologically

This weekend New Zealand is voting on the assisted suicide issue. Looks like it's really just a matter of time before it's legal.

@Shyamal My heart goes out to you, I’m sorry for your loss. Suicide is a haunting thing. It leaves all parties with darkness. You wonder what they must have thought, what you could have done, what if’s about it all. Thank you for putting your energy into this. Speaking from my own experiences I believe depression comes in many levels. From sadness to fear, to hopelessness and destruction. And after having been depressed for most of my life, I’ve come to find peace in the darkness that others see as a hopeless abyss. This year has been so hard for many. I have found myself in a place where I can burst out in ecstatic joy and crawling back into my wicked thoughts from moment to moment. So what do you say to those that have found darkness to be their home? One has to find meaning, discover a purpose, some reason why you have to continue to breathe. And with something greater to live for, one can move beyond the self. But it’s so much harder than that. Because today’s world has become so unnatural and toxic. A lot of people are dead before they die. Questions for you. What is the number one thing that is missing in your life? What can you do right now that would give you joy? What do you Love about yourself? Where do you want to be in 1 year? What is a dream you want to have? What is keeping you back? What is your purpose here on Earth? ?❤️ thank you

I'm sorry that you lost a friend to suicide. I admire your intention to help other people in similar situations. The idea of suicide originates from three factors: I'm in pain. I'm alone. And I see no end to it. I think that the significance of a community is for people to talk about it openly. Suicidal people believe they are the only ones who think about it. If they know how many people are struggling with doors closed, the suicidal thoughts would drop instantly. People won't be killed by suffering. People are killed by suffering alone. Another thing is that addressing too much on positivity may not help. For me, positivity was repulsive when I felt hopeless. What truly helps is negativity met with compassion, knowledge, stories, and awareness. I'd also like to share with you Teal Swan's insights on suicide: With all of such good intentions, we still can't prevent suicide by 100 percent. But it's worth the effort. Thank you for your leadership and bravery. Wish you all the best!

Downward Spiral TW: Suicide Lately I have been struggling with suicidal ideation. I am constantly in a state where I don't feel stable or safe and sometimes I wonder if life is still worth living if this is my default. I don't have anyone to talk to which is why my entries are always as long as they are. I don't have anyone to share what I'm going through. It's always been one thing after another. Every time I get to a point where I can live my best life, something else hits me and completely blind sides me. Maybe this is the myopia of negativity. It's like that one Uncle Iroh quote that goes along the lines of "If you look for the light you will eventually find it but if you look for the dark, that's all you'll ever see." Academically, I understand everything that is going on in my classes. But when I sit down to actually do my work, I am completely lost. Idk what's happening to me. I can't help but feel that there is something wrong with my brain. After analyzing this, I think this is a case where the map is not the territory. I understand the theory and how it's supposed to play out but I fail at the implementation. You can't learn math by watching people doing math I guess. Another thing that is important to take into consideration is that it's October. 5 years ago I had a suicide attempt very close to my birthday and ever since then I get into this somewhat depressed mood. I'm already not in the most stable circumstance because it is 2020, the world and everything around me is in a very volatile place, so adding depression and academic issues to the mix makes things 100x worse. On top of that I'm pretty sure that there are some hormonal things going on. I haven't had my period in 3 months. I don't know what that's about but I wouldn't be surprised if it had a great impact on my mood inclinations. All of this is basically adding up to me wanting actually jump off a bridge because I feel super hopeless about life. I just want to return to the state of joy that I was in when I first started this journal.