Waiting For The Demise

 

(content warning: suicide)

How does it feel to be a death row inmate who knows the very date of their execution, someone who is stuck in a tiny elevation above a mighty raging flood and watching the waters slowly rise and swallow the feeble material they are holding on, a terminally ill patient who has to carry a hastily deteriorating body, a passenger who is on a burning falling airplane, a soldier preparing and walking towards a battle they are sure to turn disastrous or someone who is simply laying on the bed and impatiently, anxiously waiting for the pills to kick in? I have always thought that it must involve a great sense of terror, but it might not be so. There is a certain feeling of certainty, closure and even comfort knowing that whatever is happening to you will pass and your state of affairs will irrevocably change. No more annoying noises of self hatred, gnawing doubt, ever ballooning, the possibility of failure, heart-piercing betrayals and no more room for pessimism. You have truly hit rock bottom, rock bottom is cozy in a strange way., you don’t have to climb up anymore.

Once the ember that warms up your life fades away, you can truly change. You might become more of an amoral creature. Not because “nothing matters”, but the opposite, now everything you do matters, perhaps for the first time in your life, everything you do, to the sip of water in your throat from the spicy bit of the shit in your anus, everything matters immensely. Self importance breeds self-assurance. Self-assurance overrides one’s common moral hangups, anxieties, external pressures. The moment becomes ripe to do the right thing, the right thing that you should have always done. You should have always done this, if you had already done it, everyone would be happier and you would not suffer as much. And look, now you just have to do it. Sometimes fate binds you to do a gross thing. So just dress your best, say your goodbyes and do it. Someone has to bear the sins for everyone else. Those people have real pasts, presents and futures. You, you and I, have nothing, nothing of importance in comparison. So we are the perfect candidate to do this grim thing, this morbid self sacrifice, this act of liberation..

Our view is clear, our determination is iron-clad, our souls are calm, we feel happy. But what do we do in the meantime? How would you pass your last day? What do you do? Reminisce about your past? That’s not an activity. That’s something that already happens by itself. Eat your favorite food, watch your favorite movie once again, talk to people whom you care for the most one last time, write a painstakingly crafted goodbye letter or an overly emotional will, do something obscene or crazy you wouldn’t have done otherwise or be consumed by the thoughts of the moment and simply do nothing?

I think the easiest solution is to merely continue your routine as you do. It might be dull and wasteful at first. Go to work, chit chat with people as if nothing is going on, eat fast food, be occupied with your usual hobbies, finish the assignment, continue the 40 hour save on that game, clean the house, prepare dishes, take a shower, feed stray cats? Just live like nothing will ever happen, just live as if you are immortal.

That’s also a sure-way to dodge any existential dread about immortality. Routines are immortal themselves. You do the same thing everyday because either you want to do the same thing forever or you have already done the same thing forever. This only looks machine-like to an outsider. For the insider, this might feel like heaven or hell, both have the same fundamental appeal: your life will finally become an endless, timeless routine. Best way to get close to someone is often acting like you have always been close forever. Most people don’t think about how they will outlast their pets because they have been looking after them “forever”, a forever of 10 years, 2 years, 3 months or a whole 20 minutes. Infinity is not alien, it is a comfort blanket. Finiteness can make something too valuable indeed. Concepts like “last meal” are true torture fuel, because there can be no meal ever good enough to be the last one, whereas if you just had your regular breakfast you can feel like you are just starting another exciting or dreadful day. Salvation through the same!

And we must always consider the other possibility. Sometimes we say that there is no choice, that there is nothing we can do, that things will surely be quiet forevermore. You might have really felt your doom a long time ago. But it’s not always that certain isn’t it? What if it doesn’t happen? You turn out to be too sturdy, the survival instinct kicks in, you escape at the very last second, things turn out to have an easier solution? What if hope drowns your embers of self annihilation? What if your dreams aren’t completely crushed? What if you can’t be sure? What if your glorious self-annihilation is thwarted? What if the day you have prepared for gets delayed? Delayed! What then, are we simply to languish with our foolishness? Good for us, another day wasted. Now we are alive and we feel even worse and our only salvation might have slipped through our hands for good.

The people who didn’t really want to die and feel merely obliged to, ironically, end up in the worst position because they believed the finality of their doom for so long. Yay, we live for another day. Another day for what? Dreams I have cast away, people I have driven away, good food I put away, books I locked away, the heart I have tucked away, the life I have thrown away? The most foolish of us all shall bear the greatest responsibility. To have to trudge on living. Not for the sake of another person, not even themselves, but simply there is nothing else to do...

And my friends, this is why you should fold your clothes, brush your teeth, wipe the table and do the dishes. There is a difference between spiraling in a clean kitchen or a freshly dusted room and spiraling in a sweaty bed or at a smelly dinner table. There is never enough time to properly sulk about your life’s gigantic failures but realizing that you didn’t scoop the cat litter while doing that? That’s awesome, and you can’t “end it”, you just tried that. Just get up, get up, get up and take the garbage out, you can feel drowsy on the sofa later. Just check social media too, later why not?

The knife, the pill, the bullet, the chasm might be too reassuring, too blindingly bright, too bewitchingly beautiful, too deliriously delightful. That might be the biggest curse itself, unfortunately, there might always be a tomorrow.

So we might as well act like there will always be one.

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons, namely: Effy, Kelsey Fyfe, Laura, Makkovar, Morgan, Olympia, Otakundead, Rita, Sasha. Also thanks to Alex(@punishedgenetic on Twitter) for his perfect editing work.