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I went on holiday to Spain once, bought an inflatable dinghy and paddled with a friend for a long time around the coast until we got to a beach. On the beach was a naked man. After we had convinced him to get some pants on (mickey mouse boxer shorts) he told us his story.

Basically he'd gone on holiday exactly like us once, found this beach, and just thought, "fuck it" and stayed. Fuck the job, fuck the family, fuck the friends, everything. He lived in a cave near the beach, the locals gave him food and he did the odd job when he could be arsed.

Ever since I've thought, "if it ever gets so bad I want to kill myself, I'm just going to get up and go back to that beach."

That simple thought alone has got me through some rough times.

As we paddled away from the beach other people started coming out of other caves to come and watch us leave.

There are several options to exit without pain. I found one on the internet, and have prepared it. It was inexpensive and the components are not particularly suspicious. It's ready to go when I am.

Somehow that makes me appreciate life more. Being able to leave at will makes staying sweeter. I can let go of much of the stress by knowing that it is voluntary and temporary, which lets me focus on the simple pleasures. Of which there are many.

I'm not ready to go, partly because I am ready to go.

I strongly suggest you throw those supplies in the trash. You can re obtain them if really needed. As it is, you are one bad day from taking an action that (based on populato statistical evidence) you will most likely immediately regret but cannot undo.

Possibly true in the case of someone dealing with bipolar disorder or acute depression. Not so much for someone with decades-long depression or chronic physical pain.

Can you post the statistical evidence that is based on?

The freeing bit in that is the sense of agency and control. We are very very attached to those things because in the construction blueprints of our minds we anchor a sense of self and a sense of happiness unconditionally with control and agency. Most people don't realize just how much they actually do this because they consider themselves healthy so it's out of their mind, but for people at the edge these words take on a very clear, material shape.

The other person who replied to you is right about the fact that you are but one oscillation away from doing something you probably wouldn't do the next day though, so while I understand your approach I would advise you to build into it a couple safeguards that ensure a reasonable amount of time passes where you can look at yourself and persistently decide to check out.

If you do need to make it available to yourself, just build a way for the process to take time before you can "pull the trigger". Filter out the high-frequency noise.

Anecdotally, I'd say even something on the order of weeks/months. And do this while you're in a decent place mentally, so that you can be kind to the version of you that goes through tougher times.

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The bigger picture, when doing this, is working towards realizing that you can gradually release the grip on this need for control through various things: at first, through practical things like having proven to yourself that you could get there already once therefore you can always do it again. But gradually, by being able to digest the flow of your emotions as they are, and figuring out how to put an increasing amount of tools, communication and basically distance between you and your end.

> figuring out how to put an increasing amount ... distance between you and your end.

I disagree. Death should be held close, to give value to life:

"Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm's length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he's about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, I haven't touched you yet." -- Carlos Castenada

Death is always close. You can always throw yourself under a train, or a car can hit you while crossing the road. Heart attack. Robbery. Whatever it is.

Keeping some distance between you and a designed act to end yourself comfortably is helpful because when you're in a state of despair you do need to take some perspective before impulsively acting.

Impulses are powerful and very often not something we actually wanted to do in hindsight, and this extends beyond an on/off switch for life (for example into sexuality, or aggressive behaviour).

There's a difference between being present in the flow of the moment and embracing chaos. "Loving-kindness" towards yourself is part of that difference.

Please dont ever suggest people end it all by throwing themselves under a car, train truck or anything else controlled by somebody. Nobody should ever have to live with the fact they were driving a vehicle that somebody used to end it all. Why distroy two lives. Pretty selfish making somebody live with the consequences of your decision.

Everyone likes to be upset about something here!

I did not suggest it, I'm merely stating the truth. You CAN do that, therefore the point of the person I was replying to isn't the one they were trying to make, which allowed me to shift the description of that point towards what it actually is about and deserved to be addressed.

Your message is just empty posturing here - it won't prevent people who are suffering from thinking what I wrote (spoiler alert: they already did long before I wrote it), and it doesn't address their pain either.

If you want people to not throw themselves in front of traffic, reach out to them and actually embrace that they have pain on their terms - not yours.

I don't agree. Society does not allow others to leave when they wish peacefully, so if that happens they will have have to live with the consequences. You can't have it both ways.

Meaning is a human concept. Life has no meaning unless you define it yourself. For some people, having children and becoming part of something bigger, a family, is what gives meaning to their lives. Belonging and being part of a group, whether it's family or something else, is almost a universal need for humans, and therefore, a common requisite for meaningfulness in one's life.

While I feel similarly to you sometimes, and I will never have children because I can't accept the risk of them suffering as much as I did, and there are already lots of kids in orphanages who can't be unborn so I'd rather try to help them instead, there's a ton of people who is happy to be alive and believes their kids will be too. And in many cases they are right, so I guess we should try to not project meaningless into other people's lives.

So, try to define meaningfulness for your own life. If the world we live in is a problem, you don't need to change it completely, sometimes finding a small corner suitable for you just works. If there are other problems deeper within yourself, therapists can be helpful. They might not change your life, but they are likely to change at least something in the way you see your life. If there's no meaning in your life, you might as well get creative and try to invent it. Might even be more interesting than your day job.

> No. I don't think I am depressed.

Yup, that's a depression. Stuck in a gray cloud of meaningless and dull pain. Neither bright sunshine, nor black night. And you are a smart person and probably convinced yourself by logical reasoning that's how life is supposed to be. Look for professional help. When my car is broken I accept the fact that there are people who are better at fixing cars than me.

Maybe you're right. But is anyone who is in this position supposed to feel optimistic? And sometimes it is just a certain brain chemistry but sometimes the circumstances are just crappy

Okay. But what if reality is bad kind of like the cinema Matrix. Someone see the truth get sad but society tells they are mentally sick. Those who are inside matrix are regarded as normal and that's how everyone should be. People are not supposed to see the truth and only that keeps them happy.

I'm not talking about the computer simulation here but the life itself.

I've taken solace that someday my time will come where I will no longer feel or consciously exist (death). So I've decided to work on gratitude first and all other life pursuits secondarily. Life is like a rollercoaster, there will always be ups and downs, until the ride is over. I get someone wanting things to end if they experience physical pain or disease with no escape, but like others have mentioned you're experiencing mental pain and there are options to work on that. How you feel matters, and you're not wrong in many of your perceptions, but you still deserve to feel better and find things that add joy to your life.

Also, I discovered this in a previous thread and it has been helpful in finding a way to navigate this seemingly very dystopian existence we humans choose to perpetuate: https://youtu.be/A9LI1Dv0DEg

I felt that way for a long time and then started to not care, because it is... boring? These points remain true, life is still pointless, but not giving a fuck is a thing in itself. "Fuck that". Not a key to survival, not a happy state, not even worth gaining, just a distinct category you may find yourself in someday.

The idea that life is ultimately without meaning is strange to me. It often comes together with an argument presupposing that only that wich is eternal can have meaning. Which is just begging the question. It also makes the concept of meaning kinda... pointless?

If you instead start from the fact that life is limited and from there get the idea that only that which happens to the living can have any meaning, you end up some other place entirely.

But both views are just circular from what you put in the concept of meaning I guess.

> No. I don't think I am depressed. I just don't want life.

I'm sorry to hear you're going through this. In case you haven't tried professional support, it might help. In my experience they're pretty good at finding the cause of issues, which is a step towards improving it.

I can relate to feeling that way but this clearly is depression. I have felt like this more or less my whole life so that’s my reality but after talking to quite a few people I have learned that many of them don’t feel that way. They enjoy life and for them it has deep meaning.