To be or not to be. Is that really the question? Every day of our lives, we do battle with death. Driving to work, running down a flight of stairs, even eating, puts us at risk of crashing, falling, or choking. Most of the time, we don’t consciously think about it, but it’s there, like the whine of a mosquito. As we get older, that whine gets louder. It reminds us that we are closing in on our expiration date, and that the careless, self-destructive things we used to enjoy doing may bring that expiration date closer, faster.But I think there’s more to it than that. After a while, the desperation of trying to survive amid so much uncertainty becomes too much to bear. The idea of dying feels like relief. Anything seems preferable to walking that tight rope, day after day, even death. Instead of finding an alternate solution to our suffering and unhappiness, we fling open the only door we think is available to us: oblivion.
Out of mental self-preservation I refuse to dwell, for very long, on negatives surrounding me.
Oh, they pass through my thoughts often enough, but then I give them the heave ho and move on to things more pleasurable.
For instance: like being glad (nay, ecstatic) I'm not eighteen, facing a world gone hopelessly mad, and being clueless as to how to 'fix' it without giving up all my electronic gadgets and plastic gewgaws.
Death will be welcomed at some point; it'd be nice if it were *my* choice, however. So...I proceed with caution. Not much of a chance-taker here.
I think we can (sometimes!) outgrow these impulses, don't you? I'm far far less destructive now than I was at eighteen. But I'm also closer to the end of my time on earth. The death drive has defiance to it, like holding your hand to a fire. You fear it, so you want to taunt it a little. Let it know it has no power over you--even though it does.
Despite the fact that Dr. Spielrein has a name as German sounding as my own, it turns out she was Russian. (I had to look her up -- I'd not heard of her before.)
I never manifested a death wish in those prime years, but later in life and ever since I've struggled to maintain control over the seething rage that is permanently just beneath my surface. ("Don't you ever tame your demon, But always keep him on a leash" -- lyric from "Arsonists Lullaby.") Maybe some of it came out by taking up fencing (sabre) and riding horses (English, not Western.) I never got very far with either, and moving to So IL forced me to drop both.
At least you recognize that rage. I'm not sure everybody does, to tell you the truth. We engage in all kinds of self-destructive and plantary-destructive practices, but we never scratch the surface of where they come from. We're asked to mine our dysfunctional pasts, which is good practice and I'm not discouraging it at all, but what if--what if--there were underpinnings to our destructiveness, like the death drive, that explain it in the first place?
Out of mental self-preservation I refuse to dwell, for very long, on negatives surrounding me.
Oh, they pass through my thoughts often enough, but then I give them the heave ho and move on to things more pleasurable.
For instance: like being glad (nay, ecstatic) I'm not eighteen, facing a world gone hopelessly mad, and being clueless as to how to 'fix' it without giving up all my electronic gadgets and plastic gewgaws.
Death will be welcomed at some point; it'd be nice if it were *my* choice, however. So...I proceed with caution. Not much of a chance-taker here.
I think we can (sometimes!) outgrow these impulses, don't you? I'm far far less destructive now than I was at eighteen. But I'm also closer to the end of my time on earth. The death drive has defiance to it, like holding your hand to a fire. You fear it, so you want to taunt it a little. Let it know it has no power over you--even though it does.
Despite the fact that Dr. Spielrein has a name as German sounding as my own, it turns out she was Russian. (I had to look her up -- I'd not heard of her before.)
I never manifested a death wish in those prime years, but later in life and ever since I've struggled to maintain control over the seething rage that is permanently just beneath my surface. ("Don't you ever tame your demon, But always keep him on a leash" -- lyric from "Arsonists Lullaby.") Maybe some of it came out by taking up fencing (sabre) and riding horses (English, not Western.) I never got very far with either, and moving to So IL forced me to drop both.
At least you recognize that rage. I'm not sure everybody does, to tell you the truth. We engage in all kinds of self-destructive and plantary-destructive practices, but we never scratch the surface of where they come from. We're asked to mine our dysfunctional pasts, which is good practice and I'm not discouraging it at all, but what if--what if--there were underpinnings to our destructiveness, like the death drive, that explain it in the first place?