looking for a way out

finished an interesting book today: veronika decides to die, by paulo coelho. it was about a girl who decides to commit suicide because she had nothing to look forward to in life, and felt powerless to do anything about the ugliness she perceived in the world. i know how she feels. the book tells us that an awareness of death allows us to live more intensely. i started thinking about suicide again - what does it mean when someone chooses to kill themselves? to take the third option? it means they are giving up on life. can life be so horrible that one can reject it? is my life so horrible that i should contemplate killing myself? galaxy told me pete went around asking people to rate their life according to happiness. galaxy scored a 7. pitman thought he was 10. pete gave himself a 3. i am 2. the score of apathy. i am not so disgusted by my life to go to the bother of killing myself. i merely find no joy in living. munky told me a long time ago that realising that life holds not intrinsic purpose can actually be a liberating experience. i didn't understand then - i found it a burden, yet another chore to add to my to do list, to find something that will give my life meaning. something that i will not become disillusioned about. but there isn't any to be found. but finishing the book i find i am beginning to understand what he meant - when you reject reality, and create your own separate one, you are bound to be disillusioned. there are only two ways out - to end all realities, by killing yourself; or to ignore all realities, and just live, just be, and not worry about rules imposed by others or yourself. mike offered the mountain climbing analogy to counter my war one: life is like climbing a mountain, you either take up the challenge and the risk of climbing the mountain, or you don't, and remain on the ground. i don't want to climb the mountain - it doesn't interest me to get to the top. but maybe the view along the way is better than the view down the bottom. only one way to find out!

angels all around

i've been in bad mood since last night. once again that fleeting moment of mania followed inevitably by depression. oh how i feel sick in the bottom of stomach and i just want to throw up. actually went to clinic this afternoon and it was alright, but then i sank again. had a long chat with lou on msn and i cant believe how much i revealed about what i was feeling about myself and the world around me. i can't remember the last time i told someone so much, and lou is probably the last person i expected to want to listen to the kind of bullshit that i said. but, she cheered me up for a bit. sometimes the people you find around you amaze you, even when you think you have them pigeonholed. i guess i just assume too much.

news from the home front

my housemate matt got with my other housemate taisia yesterday. he wrote a letter to her explaning how he felt about her, how he had been feeling about her for the last few weeks, tossing and turning in his bed at night, every time they were together at the pub, thinking he should just forget it but cant. it reminded me of me in the winter of 2001. so she agreed they should talk about it and i pissed off to brumbles' house to study. dunno was home in rochy. well, they talked and it worked out well for him after all. so now he walks around with a perpetual grin, feeling very much like a king, i suspect.

its weird, cause now i'm feeling neglected. its the same after i help out a patient and they get better, say thank you, and go back to their own lives and loved ones, and i stay behind. an endless stream of turned backs. its the same after playing in a concert, after a party, after a fun day with my mates, when all the excitement is finished and now its time to move on but i always don't want to go home. and it made me think - i should be able to move on too, smile, tuck it away in a corner of my memories, and go back to my own life and my friends and families. but i keep yearning for the good times to stand still, for the world to stop at that moment when everything seems perfect and my heart is filled with happiness. but time, well, it just keeps rolling on. reminds me of mcbeth, actually.

the rat revisited

went the the 'rat the last few days for specials week and it was a very different experience from last time. the aura that seemed to surround the place is now gone. the reality of being in a town away from your friends struck home those couple of nights there. it must be difficult to come home and have no one physically there to talk to. i like being alone, but its always nice to have someone you are comfortable with in the next room. i think i'll gone crazy if i had to spend a year out there and there was no one that i got along with amongst the interns there. but perhaps i just don't like the idea of living alone. as much of a hassle it is to have a housemate, there is something safe about having someone else around, like a doona for your mind.

the fourth option

jim and pete came over last night and we went out and bought some fish and chips and then ate it on the beach near St Kilda. It was pretty cold but we could see the waves and stars and the ships turning on the horizon. afterwards we made it back home and talked until 4am. the conversation went round and round about life, pushing a rock up a hill (the myth of sisyphis), whether there is a fourth option, and absolute truths. nothing was solved and we were all really tired but it felt good.

the war analogy: when you know resistance is futile, what do you do? there are three options, we decided. 1. you fight on, deluding yourself that somehow you can win. 2. you fight on, but knowing it is futile. 3. you surrender. with regards to the life, it is the same. we don't perceive any greater purpose in life, and we can either 1. keep on living, deluding ourselves with some contrived purpose or dream. 2. keep on living, but knowing there is no greater purpose. 3. you commit suicide. option 1 offers happiness and sanity. option 2 may stem from habit or hope, or something else. option 3 is the ultimate challenge of one's will - whether what we believe in translates to our actions. but this morning i was thinking about the possibility of a fourth option, and this relates to our perception, which we also talked about when we argued for and against the existence and later relevance of absolute truths.

truths are things that are right. our understanding of them are limited by our perceptions, because our understanding of anything stems from our senses (sorry plato). truths as we know it are therefore relative truths deduced from our perceptions. there may be absolute truths, and they may or may not be the same as the relative truths that we know. we can never know whether our version of truth is absolutely true. three questions stem from this discussion. first of all, are there differently versions of perceived truth? i think so. for example, the nazi beliefs in the destiny of germany and the third reich is accepted by most people belief as false and bad. this is our version of truth. at the time of the weimar republic, however, glory of the fatherland and the chance of a way out of the shame of defeat and national debt was a worthwhile goal which made the nazi party seem like a good and acceptable option. this is the german public's version of truth in the late 1930s. in retrospect, give our accumulation of knowledge about the operation and beliefs of the nazi party, and the fact that the allies won the wall, our version of the truth is clearly the dominant one today. in the future, our perception about the goodness of a totalitarian regime may once again alter (for example, in times of desparate need). the important thing to realise, however, is that we cannot tell whether any of these versions of the truth is any closer of further away from the absolute truth. secondly, at the extremes of human behaviour, does our perceived truth approaches absolute truth? i don't see why it should. for example, is the preservation of life always a good thing? we may think it is, and it may be so absolutely, but we can never prove one way or another that the two are the same. the strength of our collective convictions doesn't necessarily make our perceived truth any closer to the absolute one. finally, if absolute truth exists, does it have any relevance on or lives? the answer is a resounding yes. there may be absolute laws of physics which govern the universe. and these obviously influences our lives. however, we can only deduce what these laws are from our observations, and these may or may not be reflect the absolute laws of physics. nevertheless, it is the absolute laws which govern the universe, not our perceived ones. therefore, if there was a god, and non-believers will go to hell, if i do not believe in god, there is no question about it - i will go to hell. the absolute truths (there is a god and non-believers will go to hell) affects me. however, i cannot perceive the existence of god. therefore my perceived truth (there is no god) is at odds with the absolute truth. however, it is the absolute truth that will ultimately affect the outcome.

so in summary, there are absolute truths and perceived truths. there may be different versions of perceived truths. at no point can we know whether our version of the perceived truth is same as the absolute truth or not. and, it is the absolute truth which affects our lives, even if we cannot know what it is. however, the key in all of these statements is perception. therein arises the possibility of a fourth option. we are limited by our perception of space-time. time, especially, gives rise to our perception that life has no greater purpose. however, it is possible that our perception of time, and the perceived truth that we deduce from this (life has no greater purpose because time must come to an end, in particular, our time in existence), may not the same as the absolute truth (that life has a greater purpose). if we are able to alter our perception to transcend time, then a fourth option will be available to us. how are we able to transcend time? there seems to be two ways. 1. if we lived forever, time will lose its meaning. 2. if we only lived in the now, then future and past (measured by time) will have no relevance. however, i am unable to think like this - and so a fourth option is denied to me.

the path least taken

in living there are two opposing attitudes that struggle to guide our actions. they stem consciously or unconsciously from the futility of our existence in the universe. one can either fight the pointlessness of all our actions by imposing our set of values on them, to give them our on interpretation, to justify them with our ethics, to follow our irrelevant dreams; or, we try and become one with the universe, and listen to its moods, follow the changes in the seasons, be guided by its whims. sometimes when we take the first path our set of beliefs fall short and we are confronted with the sense of futility that we strive to deny, and it threatens to overwhelm us. i see this sometimes in the emergency department of at the kids' hospital. what do you mean there's nothing you can do? how can this happen to my little girl? there must be something/someone to blame - even if it is me. it is hard, there's no denying it. but it is harder to take the second path. who is willing to watch their child suffer? even doctors will try and fight the inevitable, even when they know it is useless. even when they know there is no one at fault. it is, after all, their sanity that is on the line.