Discussion Is/was it easier to keep living in a shit world with SI regularly engaged?

[R. A.]

We often romanticise the past, but there are still many people in the world for whom this is the case. I'm talking places where food is regularly scarce and one doesn't know if they'll have enough to eat in the day. Where hungry wild animals or other unfriendly forces of nature might turn up at your door (if you have a solid place to live in) at any time. Or for people on the streets. I wonder if I was more regularly driven by my biological drive to stay alive, whether my physical and mental ailments would have as much sway over my desire to be around at all. It's easy for the mind to go to dark places when you have a decent roof over your head and enough food for several days at any given time.

I know there were suicides in antiquity, but I wonder about the comparison of the rate. If anyone's a random expert on this subject, or better yet actually does/has lived in these circumstances, would love to hear from you.

 

[eve2004]

That's a very honest take on our reasons for wanting to live and reasons for not wanting to live.

I consider myself a privileged member of society due to the fact that I don't have many logistic issues. I think injustice is what keeps some people alive... Social injustice keeps me alive because it makes me angry. Personal injustice makes me want to CTB. I'm more willing to fight for life if others are affected. If it's just my own shit luck, I'm ready to pull the trigger any time...

 

[Zegers]

Money is important and makes your life smoother, but i don't think it changes your life and grants you a golden ticket to happiness or anything like that. Studies have shown that a person who hits the lottery over the years tends to feel the same as before. I would say that the most important thing is balance.

 

[want2dienow]

Money is important and makes your life smoother, but i don't think it changes your life and grants you a golden ticket to happiness or anything like that. Studies have shown that a person who hits the lottery over the years tends to feel the same as before. I would say that the most important thing is balance.

thats how it makes you feel, you can only speak for yourself

 

[Zegers]

thats how it makes you feel, you can only speak for yourself

I understand that when you lack you think differently, that's what happened to me.

 

[foreverfalling]

I wonder this too. I've had a comfortable life, but most of it has been spent alone at my computer. If I had to spend all my time finding food, shelter and surviving animals, I probably wouldn't have had the time to think about the how meaningless life is. The act of having to look out for my own survival may even give life meaning, that I can actually do something about my fate. Not thinking about things, but only concerned about surviving the next moment. But right now, every day is the same. I am not dying, but neither am I living.

 

[R. A.]

I wonder this too. I've had a comfortable life, but most of it has been spent alone at my computer. If I had to spend all my time finding food, shelter and surviving animals, I probably wouldn't have had the time to think about the how meaningless life is. The act of having to look out for my own survival may even give life meaning, that I can actually do something about my fate. Not thinking about things, but only concerned about surviving the next moment. But right now, every day is the same. I am not dying, but neither am I living.

Precisely this. There's allegedly a line in a video game I really enjoyed playing once (I say allegedly cause I was reminded later about it by someone who'd played the original Japanese, so maybe it's not even in the English one) that basically is this. The difference between surviving and thriving...part of what I hate about the whole "one day at a time" mindset. Fuck man, just getting through the day aimlessly and despairingly doesn't inspire me to wake up and do the same tomorrow. If I never change anything I'm just going to live this hellish limbo-nightmare until my body quits or something besides me takes me out. F that...

 

[LaVieEnRose]

Talking to a Holocaust survivor made me come to the same conclusion. When you are preoccupied with basic survival there is less room for suicidal ideation. Of course people in difficult material circumstances do kill themselves. But we must remember that only a fraction of any at-risk groups kill themselves (mentally or physically sick, poor, homeless, prisoners, etc.).

 

[R. A.]

Talking to a Holocaust survivor made me come to the same concusion. When you are preoccupied with basic survival there is less room for suicidal ideation. Of course people in difficult material circumstances do kill themsebest. But we must remember that only a fraction of any at-risk groups kill themselves (mentally or physically sick, poor, homeless, prisoners, etc.).

It's true, and is actually in line with the line from the game (Chrono Trigger); @foreverfalling I managed to find the text in both languages and there is a nuanced difference in the original. Maybe not super relevant (too tired to know) except for how applicable it may be to certain things I bet many of us feel in some way. The site's creator gave the improved translation (for those unfamiliar, off grammar is due to prehistoric cavespeak):

"If alive, Ayla fight! Winners live. Losers die. That law of this earth. Dinomen too, Aylas too, all living thing no can defy this law. Elder, yous not alive. Just not dead."