If I've learnt anything from numerous askreddit posts on the question 'what is the best feeling ever?', it's that the human condition is rather tragic. The best pleasure is basically the relief of discomfort or pain - like taking your bra off at the end of the day or like this one walking into an air conditioned room.
That's why I consider being alive as irrational for a conscious being. Suffering will always outweigh good emotions so we should come to the conclusion that not being alive is beneficial for our wellbeing. Somehow the majority of us decides to rather endure pain than end our existence.
In the darkness that is existence there can still be beacons of light.
Ending one's existence is the end of all of that. No more light, no more dark, just nothing.
I stick around due to those beacons of light in the dark and honestly the more time goes on the more I realize that there's actually quite a lot of light to be had.
Yeah work sucks for 10 hours a day, but that time allows me to enjoy my hobbies.
The pleasure of a newly painted miniature, the bliss of hiking a new trail, the exhilaration of biking further and faster than I did before, finding new places and things to photograph.
Enjoying a nap in the shade of tree on a lightly windy day, watching the river flow by while I forget to cast my line, watching the clouds flit through the sky while laying in the grass.
If you end it all the only thing left behind is the pain for those who knew you. The gap left in their lives caused by your absence.
Sometimes their big gaps: lovers, friends, coworkers. Sometimes their small: the regular who always stops by, the person with the cool hair you see sometimes, the person who you talked to on the bus that day who you still sometimes see. But the gaps are still there.
I've known a lot of people who have taken their own life, the lives of others, and had their lives taken by other people. Those gaps will always be there.
Stick around, look to the outside world, and reach out. There is light in the world if you look for it, don't let the darkness that dominates the social media landscape be all that you see.
If you didn't have discomfort or pain (or negative emotions in general), positive emotions would feel like nothing. You need the bad to contrast the good.
Kind of like gaining a tolerance to a drug, you can gain a tolerance to an emotion.
I'm taking this opportunity to vent. I just got back from a year long deployment from a snowy, mountainous region. I'm geared for cold, used to the cold. Even at the hieght of summer there, it was like ... 70°F. They decided to demobilize us in El Paso, TX!!! It's murderously hot here every day, and our barracks don't have AC!!! So after walking around all day in a head to toe uniform in Texas desert heat, I don't even get the luxury of feeling cold, crisp air 😭😭😭
Sounds like you need to be doing that venting in some air conditioning! I'm a cold weather guy myself, and if I could send you on a trip to a freezer for an afternoon I'd do it!
It's stories like this that make me glad to have joined the Air Force during peacetime. The closest I got to what you're experiencing is walking from my car to the office.
Yes, this deployment taught me I need to switch to the air force when my contract is up. I like being in the military, I'm just over being army infantry. I did the cool guy stuff! Get me a desk job!!
I'll never forget the HEATED TENTS in week 6 in BMT we were using in February. I thought being in the military was hardcore, and here I was sitting in a luxury tent. This was in the year 2000 pre-9/11, don't know if they still have them.
The first time I ever went to Albuquerque it was in the middle of July. Every day I was there was over 100 degrees. Being outdoors felt like being in an oven, and the inside of my car felt like a blast furnace, but all the businesses had their AC cranked up to arctic temperatures. My whole experience of being there was moving back and forth between absolutely roasting and completely freezing with basically no in between. It was extremely uncomfortable. This was almost 20 years ago, and to this day I don't think I've ever been so hot and so cold so many times in the same day.