h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Actually it's not a very good explanation at all, but I want people to understand at least the idea, if not the actual situation itself.




Perhaps it is something like this:

When everything hurts and is difficult and you don't want to go on, the desire to kill yourself is a natural response. It is a defence mechanism that is flawed but the basic desire is to run away and leave the pain/panic/difficulty behind. It is not necessarily an actual desire to DIE, it is a desire for the bad things to go away, and the perceived solution is to remove yourself from those things.

However, the difficulty comes when everything does not hurt, it is not all that difficult, you can function, but the desire to kill yourself is still there. You are driven to kill yourself, despite the fact that there are no obvious "things" you want to remove yourself from. The belief that you can function means that in many ways you do continue to function and people may not immediately notice the drive to kill yourself, except when things are difficult (the natural response time). Whilst people think that there is nothing all that much wrong, you also believe that there is nothing all that much wrong, because you live with the desire to kill yourself every day. This desire becomes second nature, in the same sort of way that a desire to eat chocolate or to clean your teeth when they're yucky becomes something that you don't consider much.

Behind the scenes from the people who perceive you to be "okay", you quietly go about arranging for your own death. You organise your death to the minute, you write letters to those you love, you consider practicalities; all the while functioning normally and giving an outward appearance of having a future. You order books, plan holidays, reunions, and fulfill the basic requirements of life.

This is because you do not know the exact time of death. When you want to escape, you have to escape now while it hurts, while you cant cope. When you can cope however, that escape becomes slightly wavered. There is no escape, only the desire to kill yourself. Therefore you could kill yourself tomorrow, today, or in five years. There is no restriction on the plan. That doesn't make it any less dangerous than the desperate escape option, just less noticable.

A wish to escape from life as perceived means that the idea of nothingness, of having no realisation of the consequences of your death, of having nothing left, appeals. When the desire for escape is not there, the reality of nothingness becomes the stopping gap. Just because you want to kill yourself does not necesarily mean that you want to stop seeing what happens. The desire moves away from an escape to nothing, to an escape to observation.
The observer has no control over events, no desire to influence what happens, no recognition from the participants in the observation. The observer merely sees, records, sees, records and so on. They are removed from influence and the responsibility of participating in a scene.

This observation wish provides a deep problem. The problem of how to kill oneself, whilst remaining to observe. It is impossible to do, and therefore you put back killing yourself. The desire to observe and record wars with the desire for death. To obtain the perfection of observation whilst remaining alive seems a far off possibility but not one that you can actually reach. Becoming a hermit will not sufice. You are still alive, but you are removed from those you wish to observe, you also have to participate in yourself. Killing yourself will not suffice. You are dead, not having to participate in being you, however again you cannot observe.

Remaining as you are, caught in the social wheel, is the logical option left; but the problem remains that you are still alive, you are still having to participate in yourself, and you are not an observer in any given situation but a participant. This appears to be the worst option as it fulfills none of the desired points. So whilst you float in this existance you continue to search for the desired state: death but observation.

Without proof you cannot be sure that something remains to observe after death. You cannot be sure that there is anything at all after death. This uncertainty holds you dangling over killing yourself and you argue with yourself for and against it. All the time, planning your death in the hope that some sort of proof will present itself. The desire to kill yourself does not go away, nor does the desire to observe.

Unfortunately, caught in this trap of contradictory situations, you are having to participate in life at the same time, influencing those around you, and not leaving you the time to fully consider the consequences of your desires. The people around you perceive a problem because you can no longer function as well because your time, energy and questioning is taken up with how to manufacture your death with observation afterwards.

People desperately want to help you, to help you to lead a "normal" life again, but none of it matters because you are so caught up with your problem. You no longer WANT to lead a normal life because the normal has shifted. It is no longer living in society, doing the things that you enjoy, spending time with people and things; it has become the current spinning of observation and death. It is impossible for others to fully understand this and you have no desire to explain it to them because by now it has taken on a holy quality. The state of perfection has become death with observation.

The realisation of this does not bring a change of desires, it merely shifts them. You want to explain, but feel that whatever you say it is not the full picture, no more than what a religious fanatic can tell an atheist. They cannot share your desire, understand it, or appreciate how important it is to you. For them it is merely an idea that seems cracked, flawed and unobtainable.

And so you continue on, functioning, participating without really participating, planning your death, and worrying about how to achieve observational death. What a problem!




Did ANY of that make sense to ANYONE? Get your friends to have a go! Roll up roll up it's the freak show!

Dearest Kat,
Unfortunately, that made WAY too much sense to me. I've never heard it put quite like that before, but you are so right. Thank you for the brilliant explanation.
Now that we've defined the problem, shall we work on solving it?
If you figure that one out, I'll personally fly over there to give you a big and a . You would be my hero!
In the meantime, let's stay friends, and observe each other from afar, and stave off hermitage.
Cali gal