An acquaintance of a close family member committed suicide today. He jumped off a building. Leaving two small kids and his wife.
My close relative, over the phone, was shocked and, I suspect, wanted to determine whether or not I was crazy enough to go and kill myself.
I am not the most well-balanced person, so I guess the suspicion was to be expected.
I was also secretly worried that my relative would go and commit suicide. So, whatever.
I think about the guy who killed himself today. He must have had a terrible time and couldn't bear it anymore. And then survivors' guilt would set in and everyone else around him would feel terrible.
When I was younger, I was besieged with fits of despair. Morose and angry, I would sulk and plot my revenge on the world. I carried out one of them, to my ultimate dissatisfaction.
Back then, I had a purpose in life. Much like the breeders who wish to overpopulate the Earth, I was on my sacred mission - to seek the Truth.
To find out which is right and which is wrong. Ultimately, it led me to a more chronic state of frustration and despair.
And then, I discovered this idea. Not mine. I read it somewhere.
Idea: Don't seek the truth. Just stop cherishing opinions.
Me: But...that is my function...my aspect.
Idea: Says who?
I discovered that all of pain and suffering - ALL OF IT - came from putting so much weight into opinions.
Something happens, and it is neither good, bad, right, wrong, happy nor sad. It is our judgment, our opinions that make it so, for us.
A man committed suicide. Jumped off a building. Leaving behind two children.
For some, a tragedy. For others, stupidity. And what is the truth? varies from one sphere of influence to another. From one community to another.
Value is in the eye of the buyer, wrote Gaiman. And how we love putting value into things.
I found myself, digging even further into the pits of despair, simply because of...other people's opinions? How lame is that. How pathetic it is that how we feel and think and act could be controlled so much by how other people see us and our actions.
We are the worshippers of opinions. And even those who say, "I don't give a damn!" sometimes try to ensure that other people understand very well that they do not give a damn. And sometimes, when they sense that other people might not be able to see it that way - their way - they get emotional and angry and frustrated.
All we are doing, all of it, are merely role-playing.
All the world's a stage, eh?
I do not know the secret of happiness. And anyone who tells you that, is most probably a fraud trying to fuck you or to get your money.
I do know, though, the secret to despair, having lived with it all my life.
Despair, is most normally associated with self-image. About how we are perceived to stand in this world. How our roles are seen as. The trickster, the victim, the sage, the whore.
Duality, triplicality, dodecahedrality of man.
All these bad feelings of anger, resentment, frustration, hurt and suffering all comes from perception. And more often than not, the perception is not even ours to begin with.
And even then, our own perception can sometimes be suspect.
Anger, despair, suffering, pain, are all addictive. Once you have a taste of it, you will crave more. You begin to fall in love with your role. As tormentor or the tormented. You begin to create scenes for yourself. And so you create a scene.
Then, you build the stage, and you play your roles.
All this emotion, is merely delusion.
I mean, if you're really unhappy at something, you'd go for something else, right?
If I go to Jalan Telawi 4, and every time I go there, I get beat up by some rapper-wannabes, I wouldn't go there any more.
If every time I punch myself in the face, I feel excruciating pain, I'd stop punching myself in the face, right?
The fact that some people stay in painful conditions and positions and relationships - when they have a choice not to - is because somehow, in some way, it works for them, and their roles.
When the roles overcome us, and consumes us, and we are left with little more than a caricature of ourselves, I guess that's when some people jump off buildings. Or worse.
