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Have you ever seen a dog throw itself off a bridge? Have you ever seen a cat slit it's wrists or call into the suicide hotline? ..well...the reason is they don't have the capacity to self reflect. Yes - they can feel sadness and even depression. But they aren't able to step outside themselves and become self aware that they are depressed. But yes I think it's relative to what your definition of suffering is. But I would say keep it simple. Pain is pain and suffering is suffering. Ask yourself why you are suffering? Maybe you can't prevent your hand from hurting if you stick it on a hot stove, but you might be able to prevent the suffering from it. If your definition of suffering is the screaming in anguish then yes you are correct that is a form of suffering if looked at in that context. But real suffering to me is when the human mind self reflects and inflicts mental torture on itself - thinking and creating a personal hell for itself because it doesn't have a perfect world of pleasure.

Previous chapters: spiritual tinnitus. *Old man Jenkins voice* How long has it been? Fifty years? Certainly feels that way. Like I've lived a few lifetimes in the past few years. I've been exploring the wild and revelatory vicissitudes of being human, embracing human needs and human obligations. More than half of my twenties was spent avoiding being human, i.e. spiritual bypassing. I used Leo's content, this forum, psychedelics, a whole 'lotta books, and even food to avoid the confusing, difficult world of human affairs. The main remedy that pulled me out of my spiritual circus was renting my own house. I have a host of different responsibilities and adulting things that I need to stay on top of. Survival has stared me straight in the face, and I stare back with equal reluctance and resolve. I literally cannot afford to sulk anymore. The past couple of years have been a test of the "Divine Masculine," I guess I could say. Pressing on when metaphorical weights were tied to my ankles. Developing a work ethic. Managing rejection. Believing in myself when the people around me were doubting. Having a willingness to take risks and look like a fool. Solidifying my sense of purpose. I'm proud to say that at age 30, I have finally found "my thing." My zone of genius. It's been staring me in the face for ten years, but I've been fighting it every step of the way. "There's no money in music," the average Joe says. "It's a competitive industry. Keep your day job. Music is nowhere near impactful as being a teacher, a healer, a therapist, or really anything else." Yadda yadda yadda. To a certain degree, that's all valid. But I've reached a point in my life where doing anything other than what I'm good at and feel passionate about feels like a waste of time. So if it means going the starving artist path, then so fucking be it. Fortunately, it hasn't been so bad. I've been blessed in so many twisted and peculiar ways. For instance, I was Instacarting at the time of the shooting in 2021, and consequently, the CEO gave me free mental health services as well as a large sum of money. I ended up saving all of that money, so by the time I made my way back home, I had a fat stack to invest in something. Someone offered to rent me an entire house with all of the amenities for a killer rate, and I accepted. I then used all of that saved money to invest in acoustic treatment, a new laptop, plugins, furniture, etc. for a music studio. Be Light Studio unfolded so serendipitously that looking back feels a bit surreal. Since then, I have been teaching myself music production and plan to start an LLC once I get my ducks in a row. I've spent the past year self-producing an album, and as of a few days ago, I finished it. I plan to release it in Mid-October. In between the album, a number of locals have asked me to produce their music, so I already have a growing clientele. For a while, I doubted the whole thing, reverting to my idea of becoming a healer/therapist as I already have a couple of certifications. But joining an orientation zoom call for a master's degree in counseling, I knew immediately that I would hate myself if I pursued that path. Turns out that I've been using those aptitudes in other ways. Maybe I'll write about that in another post. For the past few years, I've worked part-time at a local juice bar. But thanks to all of the live gigs I've managed to book, I am now officially financially independent. I have to live like a monk, but I'm wealthy in freedom. I never thought I'd reach this point. In most of the other parallel realities, I am likely dead by active or passive suicide. But in this reality I'm pursuing my passions and making money from them. Go figure! I could say more, but I don't want this post to be too long, and I need to get my day started. But I feel drawn back to this forum because I feel that in the midst of all of this human stuff, I've lost the plot. I've hit a level of burnout that I've never experienced before, which has caused me to backslide in my habits. I've become addicted to my own adrenaline release, whether with chronic Youtube content consumption, my right hand, or late bedtimes. While I've achieved so much in the past couple of years, I feel like I've lost myself in the process. I've lost that zest to learn more, to push myself towards higher virtue, to stay above the noise. I guess I have a case of spiritual tinnitus. So it's time to turn down the volume on distraction. My hope is that writing, whether here or in my own journal, will get me back on track. My goals for this off-season (i.e. fewer gigs and more time to myself): Replace mindless Youtube content consumption with audiobooks, books, journaling, and songwriting Either write one song or learn one cover song per week Continue working on clients' projects Transition from using my right hand with a screen, to using my right hand without one, to ideally using my right hand only once per week at most Re-acquire my stretching habit and begin to myofascially release my god-awful posture from too much guitar playing Acquire a regular aerobics habit (likely long walks) Re-acquire a regular strength training habit At least eight hours of rest every night, with an ideal bedtime of 10pm and wakeup at 7am I have other goals and more to say, but for now, this will suffice. To anyone who is curious enough to read this — I wish you well!

Not really because some people and cultures complain more while some less. Some of those „happiest“ countries also have high suicide rates and many people feeling lonely or whatever. High medication rates. High depression and burnout rates. Families are getting very small because it’s expensive to have children etc. While in poorer countries often people have huge families and so on. Pressures are different. You can’t measure it imo.

Nobody knows if those fundamentalist suicide terrorist actually achieve Nirvana doing that. Every day in more suspect of how this dream actually works...

I was a total fucking prick when I was 17-22. I was the epitome of "fuck it, fuck them, I'm looking out for myself, the world is cold, I will be colder". I would lie, steal, cheat, you name it... It took some time but the karma showed up and my life slowly turned to absolute shit and it only got worse and worse. The lies add up. The enemies add up. Your reputation becomes known and you are hated and you hate the ones who hate you and you act like you don't care. After a few years of living like this, it becomes too heavy. Amidst all the suffering and acting like I didn't give a fuck, it eventually became obvious that I couldn't continue on like this. My options were either to change or to kill myself, so I thought that I would stop being bad and see if my life improved. I wasn't spiritual and didn't have any good concept of karma but I had good intuition and pattern recognition, so I thought it was worth a try to see if being good would solve my problems. What do you know... by the time I was about 25, my life wasn't an absolute disaster anymore. After I made the decision to be good, I had to wade through my karmic debt for another 2-3 years, but eventually, all the suffering that came from it was gone. I didn't have anymore enemies and no one was lying to me and I wasn't lying to anyone else. I didn't hate people and they didn't hate me. This transformation was probably only possible because I moved away from my hometown where I incurred all the karma from. I probably would have commited suicide if I didn't stop because the consequences of my ways produced a life that was not worth living. You don't simply "burn through" karma of this type. You have to live with it and carry it and suffer the consequences and you might think you're big and bad and can handle it, but you should heed my warning if you embrace this path. It's not something you really want to fuck around and find out about. But... you gotta do what you gotta do. In other words, it is in YOUR best interested to not be a piece of shit. The person who benefits the most from being good is YOU and the person who suffers the most from being bad is YOU. This is reason number one to be good. It's not just about contribution or morality. It's so YOU don't suffer.

Don't think so, it would get old fast, and I'd much more likely be driven mad by all the foreknowledge. An occasional trip down the memory lane aided by psychedelics is another matter though, sign me up. The nostalgia is so great precisely because of how melancholic and bittersweet it is, the memories are hazy like images in Plato's cave, yet we cherish them nonetheless, the fleeting nature is a major part of the value. They say hindsight is 20/20, but that could also work in the other direction, if you study and understand enough domains of human life through the past and present, a prediction ability almost akin to clairvoyance could be developed. That IMO is much cooler and more rewarding, plus the mystery aspect remains to some extent. I've been observing this larger theme of limitation lately, as limited beings the grass sure seems greener on the other side, but most satisfaction is derived from constraints, like a perpetual motion machine, always reaching for something, but never quite getting there. Living life as the limit approaching infinity, however far you manage to get, and then in death you become infinity at last. On this topic, I've always had dreams that show the future. Nothing meaningful, so I'm not a millionaire from betting on sports, but they're 100% accurate down to the minute details. These grant me the ability to act with more freedom, as the fact that I keep having them means whatever I do next, it will turn out fine, as the future has already taken place. Time is one hell of a strange loop. Fascinating thought experiment, if one were to gather every person in the world and have them continuously and unanimously deny one's existence, how many would fall prey to that gaslighting? Would being aware of cogito ergo sum be of any help? What about different methods of denial, could be active, straight up proclaiming you don't exist, or passive, whereby everyone simply refuses to acknowledge your presence no matter what you try. There's sure to be lots of dissonance either way, but the former is likely to be less taxing on the mind. Could this actually lead to developing a stronger sense of self/autonomy, as you directly experience your independence of the others' perspectives? Or, if driven to suicide from despair, in a twisted way it could be said the denial worked, you removed yourself from existence. Creates a bit of a paradox, gotta love the mind's games. Testing could be performed in a Truman Show-esque fashion, but that'd be highly unethical and logistically challenging. Oh well, theory's plenty.

Netanyahu... Troubled Choices! A year after a furious war, he still believes he can displace the residents of Gaza, and expects others to believe him! Displacement was his first option, and he rallied support for it, but he failed. The Palestinians held onto their land, supported by their Arab brothers, and now he seems cornered. The Gaza war has turned into a quagmire, the northern front won't be a walk in the park, and in the West Bank, the ground is heating up under the feet of his army. Wherever he turns, he finds isolation and anger. He is left with nothing but troubled choices, leading him toward an abyss and pushing his state into an existential crisis. Those who supported Netanyahu in his war realize that he lacks a real strategy and is driven more by a desire for revenge. His defeat in October 2023 left him in a state of delirium and confusion, with his decisions appearing to be a form of suicide. His internal problems are growing, his external crises are becoming more entrenched, and he is swinging between the two without finding a solution, even as the West continues to support him. This has left the ruling system of the state in a state of chaos and disarray. Netanyahu's retreat now would be a defeat, his stagnation a fall, and his advance without a vision is a mixture of madness and suicide. Despite the crimes he continues to commit, he has lost his ability to make decisive moves, and Washington can no longer tolerate his actions, his plans, or his struggles. We are heading towards a series of rolling battles, and those who rush to ignite them will be the first to burn in their fire.

Martyrdom does not fall into the category of suicide. This is a big misconception. A Jihadist is not commiting suicide, he is defending his Islamic community in the most selfless way possible.

No, calling mainstream human rights organizations and Jewish intellectuals all antisemitic and dismissing them is textbook propaganda and single mindedness. Actually explain how what they say is antisemitic or wrong, just crying that I can’t appeal to authorities makes no sense. That’s like saying if experts on crime judge an act as criminal we shouldn’t consider their opinions because it’s appealing to authority. No it doesn’t. It does say if you die defending Muslims you will be rewarded, that doesn’t mean it justifies killing every non believer. Again, suicide is strictly forbidden, which is why suicide bombing is a relatively recent phenomenon.

If you set out parameters according to which something is wrong, and that thing only exists in the future, are those parameters blameless? Islam claims that if you kill a non-believer, you will go to heaven. There's a reason suicide bombers exist, they're fully supported by the Quran. Alleged backlash against suicide bombers is most likely to be for practical reasons.

It’s not that simple. Suicide is strictly forbidden, the suicide bombing was justified by one extremist imam, but there was so much backlash in the Muslim world even Hamas stopped doing it. Independent analysis finds suicide bombings are motivated politically, also most of them just kill the attacker so odds are they just use it as an excuse to commit suicide. Nothing in Islam is inherently against America or Jews, America wasn’t discovered during islams founding and Jews were considered a protected class.

@Nemra You are not able to see Russias side. If USA proxy Ukraine to Russia its about the USA. If Russia sees they are being proxy attacked by their biggest enemy they will suicide bomb the planet.

This is a great article about nofap and how it actually hurts people to believe in nofap and porn and masturbation as being bad. Worth reading. It also provides an alternative to how to deal with porn and masturbation instead of strict abstinence. https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/07/nofap-masturbation-reddit-forum-suicide.html

There's no room for it in our political climate. People will just smear you as a pedophile if you attempt to defend pedophiles. It's basically political suicide. The public is not interested in a serious discussion of such issues. When it comes to political activism you have to be realistic about what the public is ready for and what it isn't.

@PurpleTree Hey, we're "higher developed" cultists here, we only do "ego-death" (ego-suicide), "So uncivilized..." 😁

gosh i’m still waiting for my poison drink and the mass suicide but i guess everyone who claims they are god and has a community or people who follow them or their content to a certain extent will be called a cult leader

@puporing Thanks for your support and help. I do definitely think that the "old school" parenting model that was applied to me was mostly ineffective, as it made me a mental wreck. Obsession over academics and grades has been the bane of my existence since I was a very young child, and it was I was never offered an alternative to succeeding in the world, the focus was always school. I have a lot of healing to do, I had a (suicide) plan, materials, date marked on my calendar. I seriously think Leo saved my life, as I called the crisis hotline and instead of help I was bounced back and forth between different lines, because apparently I didn't call the correct one.

22: I think about suicide so often I don’t know how much longer I can stand my life.

@Rishabh R yes basically, I suspect when anyone has a feeling of rejection (hurt), nothing can be any more real. I'll give you a concrete example. My ex-wife accused me of abuse, I concluded that despite me not being an abusive personality by nature, quite the opposite, she fully believed it. So, I had no choice but to accept her feelings. But, on the other hand, she had a history of leaving disaster in her wake, broken relationships, attempted suicide, narcissism, and a host of other weirdness (I should emphasize her tendency toward paranoia). I never fully integrated my acceptance of her viewpoint UNTIL my daughter came to me with feelings of the same experiences with her mother. What I then realized was that 'it' wasn't me, it was her. Of course, I played my part in it, but she has an enraging personality and I fell into her game due to my own very real weaknesses. So, it is in a way walking a tightrope (A psychologist would call it 'walking on eggshells, which is part of the ploy that women love to use to justify their inability to accept what is really real). But we as individuals/people have to navigate the landmines of human emotions to eventually 'actualize' our experiences. Life is not easy for us humans, sometimes painful, sometimes blissful, Though far from easy for me, we have to make it work and most essential is moving forward in a way that makes us happy. I haven't done it yet and will likely go to my grave without that as an accomplishment.

@Jacob Morres the metrics I use include things like suicidal thoughts and depressive episodes. I have those every few days. It used to be even more frequently than that. On some days suicide seems insane to me. On other days I feel hopeless to the point that I don't care about my family. Maybe I'm slightly less suicidal than I used to be. I also get better sleep thanks to the med adjustment.

Very first thing you should do is destroy your rope and note and any other suicide tools you have. Suicide is usually done on impulse, so get rid of the means first.

Yes, suicide statistics show it's a widespread issue, but the real challenge here goes beyond numbers. If people start leaving suicide notes on a public forum regularly, it would quickly harm the forum’s reputation, regardless of intent. This isn’t just about how common suicide is, but about the responsibility and perception that comes with running such a space. While the work done here can lead to deep self-reflection, which sometimes triggers suicidal thoughts, simply filtering out certain words won’t solve the issue as i previously though. I guess we need to recognize that this forum can become a place where people in distress seek help, and that makes it even more crucial to handle these situations with care, offering resources and ensuring there's real support for those in crisis. This way, the forum's purpose remains intact without unintentionally contributing to a negative reputation.

Can you go and look at the stats per/day/yr in the US alone. I've seen 2 here since I've been registered since 2020. More threateners, but only actually 2 commited. 2 in 4 yrs for a public forum. I just checked, 49,000 people died by suicide in the US in 2022 alone. Leo could probably sue the state if he got in trouble. People are committing suicide left and right everyday everywhere. South Korea has the most and Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland the least. Your neighbor probably threatened suicide yesterday and your co-worker is probably thinking about it as we speak and another 10 maybe 100 miles proximity from you in the last year. 2 in 4 yrs on a forum of people from across the globe is nothing even though one is one too many.

@Emerald I am from London, it's a very competitive city. I have childhood female friends and always went to mixed schools. I have women in my social circle but they are all in long term relationships. I have always socialized with women, I have never really had the classic male interest; sports, cars, video games(I know women can be interested in these things) etc I have tried flirting in the past but it was clear that it was unwanted, so I stopped. It doesn't feel good to make someone uncomfortable. I asked another woman out who was a friend of a friend and she agreed to a date but never turned up, so I got stood up for what would have been my first date. I still have never been on an actual date with a woman. The majority of the time, the women are nice about the rejection but one I think has scarred me. I remember receiving this look of complete repulsion and that killed my confidence for a while. At university my roommate and close friend was one of those stereotypical chad player types, women were very forward with him. They would basically invite themselves to his room and at one point he was seeing about 7 women at once but it got a bit toxic because one of the girls wanted something more and threatened to commit suicide if he didn't oblige. It was eye opening to say the least, to see how direct and brazen women could be with very attractive men. He's married now, in fact a lot of my friends are and I am still trying to get a date. I wonder if the messages we receive as children manifest in our life. I got teased a lot at school and I remember a girl saying I would die alone. Lately my mother has begun pressuring me to get a girlfriend and she has said the "you are going to die alone" thing as well.

@Husseinisdoingfine stop being dramatic, Brother. Listen to the wise advice from people here. Turning off your avatar, called suicide, will not end anything. Quite the opposite. You will experience frustration, anger, irritation on an incomparably larger scale. Here, as a human, you have the opportunity to work through it. And you have no way out. You will not escape from yourself anywhere. Get to work, Brother👊