im doomed

[Voice for Peace]

22. Death is part of life, that's how it is. We may not like it but

people and the myriad creatures have been doing it for a long
long time. We are dust to dust, and that's how it is, and
can't be changed. It is not terrible.

Pain is real. Your pain is clearly deep and agonizing, and I
do empathize because I have lived much of my life on the
edge of madness, peering into death, and believing in
almighty hopelessness. The pain which hurts so much
that you turn off all feeling. Hope seems like a joke
and so does the occasional happy moment, a cruel joke,
because what I'm used to is pain, that's what's familiar.

I'm not there any more, it's been a long hard climb.

There is beauty everywhere, and hope as well.
There is a ton of shitty stuff but that is NOT courtesy
of Life -- it is courtesy of human beings.

Life does stuff like turn dirt into fragrant colorful
flowers, or food, or living breathing walking creatures.

Life makes winds blow and cells dance and hearts
beat. Life recycles it all, including us, in a never-
ending cycle of compost here on earth. One day it
may all be ruined, or one day it may all be restored,
we don't know. There are millions of good people
on the planet who care and work hard to make it
good, to help. We are on that team.

If you give all of your attention to the miseries of the world,
it will fill your vision, like a swarm of enormous bugs on a
windshield. You won't be able to see anything else.

You and I have a choice about this.

If I want darkness and misery, that's what I will nourish in me.
If I want to feel suicidal and hopeless, that's what I will nurture.

Here's how:
All of my thoughts will be spent on thinking about the miserable stuff.
I will read and or watch only miserable bad news from every possible source.
I will reinforce the badness by thinking about it over and over.
The more I do, the worse I will feel, which will only prove me right.
I will let everyone else know how crappy everything is,
and reinforce my belief that this is the truth.
Whenever I do something good, or feel good, I will remind myself
that I am bad, or that happiness is false and fleeting. I
will reject hopeful thoughts and feelings, even if
they are coming from my own heart.

You're here at DU, I am guessing, because you wish for a better world.
But you must be part of it. We can't afford to lose any
of us to hopelessness. Keep some hope alive for the team.