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!