Boredom - Spontaneous and Solicited inside prisons

Spontaneous and Solicited Boredom inside a Prison

Without getting into the morality or veracity of how prisons are being run or operated and whether or not they are within our legitimately statutory or constitutional guidelines in reference to human rights and confinement conditions decreed by the courts, it has been widely expressed that under the dehumanizing conditions of prison life, it is reasonable to say that the state of boredom has come to pervade the experience of everyday life inside the penitentiary.

This collective boredom can be the trigger mechanism to spawn not only moments of illicit excitement (as prisons are schools of enhanced criminality as well as a house of repentance) but larger arenas of short-lived crimes committed against boredom itself, but a stimulus for a larger flow or migration of political and cultural rebellion spread out over time sentenced and served.

Thus it is safe to describe this collection of boredom inside a large jail or prison as an institutionalized form of boredom due to ambient beats or tones in relationship to its various sets of rules and cultural behaviors in various levels of societal expectations or innovations.

Every penal system has a brand or culture of its own and fosters daily under the pressure of mental stress, intellectual excitement (thrill seekers or adrenalin junkies) and therefore offers a rebellion of its own at times. Hence, a collective or institutional boredom is an overall form of a human(s) engagement(s) with time, space, rules, criminality and other factors explored to determine what prisoners do when they get bored.

Like out in the streets, institutional boredom can be destructive in nature and needs to be addressed to avoid social disruptions or criminal activities from taking over their efforts to do their time constructively and with some acceptable form of rehabilitative efforts to come out a reformed person.

Anyone who denies that boredom does not impact criminality, violence, property destruction, disturbances or other negative environmental dynamics has not studied the mannerism of those incarcerated for a lengthy amount of time and how they do their time. take into consideration a few other factors to add to the triggers of boredom and you have yourself a collective cause that are the basic foundation of crimes, riots, looting and destruction of property when activated under another reason or pretense.

Boredom can be quickly accelerated into a vested ‘interest’ to participate and cause or create a larger scene. One can invest in the act of incitement by merely shouting encouragement or actually act out with their own activities or engagements demonstrating approval, cohesion and rebellion.

This is how the boredom is quickly and spontaneously spread into an organized or collective effort to exhibit a sense of approval, whatever the cause, grievance or complaint might be at the time of such demonstrations. Even tacit approval, by silence, can bring a collective effort to its peak or climax if the tone and energy afforded and applied matches the wills of those participating.

Encouragement can come in many forms – (chants) talk along, mocking or repeating, laughing and yelling or some other form of human engagement that displays some sort of anthem or affirmation of something e.g. allegiance through a show of cohesiveness and heavy taunting. This is especially true in gangs.

Realistically, through some common or conflicting gang audiences, this method of communicating, may in fact be translated into lyrics, or [rap] songs that represent their moods or ideologies with a pretense or disguise these lyrics are just that, songs, but in reality their mantra for behaviors and claiming or expressing their membership of the gang.

Such collective boredom strategies may be a form of organizing or dis-organizing illicit or unauthorized gatherings while reinstating their presence and body of force and power / control on those present at the time including correctional staff. In a prison setting this could be done even when every individual is locked up in a single cell as they collectively chant or taunt those who oppose them. Thus the freedom to join in these impulses is solicited and inviting a common cause or resistance.

Moreover, such activists or instigators are in reality a symptomatic example of other problems that should not be ignored in everyday existence. Remember that everything in human life exists within the boundaries of buying and selling; a web of exploitative and demeaning activities and behaviors that undermine the security and order of any facility.

By their mere example of behavior, they could trigger or force a demonstration of resistance that threatens the everyday routine of any large jail or prison and if not picked up, could cause apocalyptic consequences. Most people would heed such a warning and alert those in charge something is happening and the place is filled with a banner of subversive activities. A ghost of things to come that is ever present in every penal institution everywhere.

This cultural undercurrent must be observed or detected to avoid a more aggressively animated unexpected uprising. The disregarding of such behaviors allows tension and other stressors to percolate and if it remains unaddressed, it serves as a fuel by creating an incendiary cultural dogma of the group’s desired wishes or demands to be heard or mediated with in order to resolve any undetermined grievances before the place blows up.   

One cannot deny that whenever such howling incantations of these type of activities are present, there is in fact a critique that turns out or reveals that boredom or too much leisure time was directly involved in such demonstrations. Hopefully, nobody will say that boredoms are minor details and address such conditions in a timely manner with secondary points of interest to discuss or mediate for resolution.

Boredom is the tool of insurgents. The politics of boredom straddle criminality and excitement. Boredom may be displayed as graffiti, vandalism, fights, theft, sexual assaults and much more. With the agenda of mass incarceration and overpopulated jails and prisons, boredom has emerged as some sort of motive for aggression and a conceptual building block for activism and critique of the environment. This by itself allows boredom to expand into broader social and cultural condition at the whim of the activists or demonstrators.

Keep in mind, revolutions are real or imagined creations for the possibilities to change social and political justice. There is a strong relationship between boredom, revolutions or disruptions and criminality. Having the condition of boredom multiplies exponentially the reasons for incitement, excitement and is implicit in institutionalized worlds like prisons.

Merely based on penitentiary related customs and practices, there is a precarious tradition to destroy or riot whenever conditions are unsatisfactory or when faced with any other pragmatic situation that may need attention.  

Boredom as defined inside a large jail or prison could encompass features such as bureaucratic rationalization, too much efficiency, excessive routinization, excessive or insufficient regulation, too much standardization and others familiar to stifle the human engagement to be productive or creative whenever incarcerated for a long period of time.

The more repetitive the environment is, the more boredom is created and thus the population senses no progress and becomes idle and frustrated. In plain English – whenever overcome by the dulling sameness of the day, the more boredom is created.

Here at last is the paradox of boredom and institutionalization – the agency wants regulation and consistency in their programs – the population suffers on sameness and dullness. Thus the challenge is to emerge with some human measures of worth, values and address the quirks of individualities and create some incentive to provide a personal innovation to combat boredom.

Taking into consideration that obedience to rules and regulation is rationalized as success, this process takes away the independence of minds and creates problems for the rulebooks due to misbehaviors and other resistance motives. Therefore, an unusual rise or growth in disciplinary or misconduct is a red flag for potential disruptions within the population.

Success should be measured in defusing or recover a sustainable balance for moderation and at the same time, find things to do in everyday life to counter-point the dullness and make the individual existence meaningful with some kind of approved democratic participation in the construction of their everyday life.

The administration should find a balance between legitimate mental exertions and physical or labor interests inside their facilities eliminating or reducing negative forces that exert hate or discernment, personal discouragement and irrational thinking and emotional disruptions which do not escape and escalate with due time.

Today, public schools serve as rehearsal halls for mental hospitals and jails/prisons emerge as training centers for boredom through the enforcement of a tedium agenda. To repeat this trajectory from schools to prisons is a dangerous path to continue on as it has an emotional buildup that is rarely addressed through constructive means or programs.

Children today are being programmed and orientated into a state of disciplined efficiency. Working assembly lines or fast food franchises are mass-producing instruments of boredom and when re-instituted inside a jail or prison, the process is continued without any freedom for individuality to appear and invigorate the mind and body onto a new path.

One can begin to see how the mechanics of conformity create a schedule of dullness and sameness to a large degree in the everyday life and more so inside a prison. This would be a positive attribute if the population was to remain under some level of mind control or a rigid trained insightful means of behaving but the fact is, in order to prepare them for release, we have to find ways to cut out the rigidities of their sameness and create individuals who may think and behave to conform to society’s rules which are much more liberal and filled with more freedoms than inside the joint.

As an alternative, we must seek an open circle of control rather than the closed circle they [prisoners] have been orientated under and conformed to strict rules while incarcerated. This could be addressed through custody levels as the lower custody levels allow more individuality than the higher more rigid custody levels.

Research shows that boredom creates alienation, estrangement of relationships etc. as their minds are not adequately occupied. It would appear that if there was some change infused into the everyday life the monotony is reduced, and relief is found making it more bearable and creative that may even include some excitement for the lack of a better word.

Delving into the emotional aspect of boredom, we find despair as one fatalistic element as well as resistance. This would be exasperated for those who are mentally ill and contemplate suicide. One can create radicalism through boredom as those who resist boredom seek alternatives that are either constructive or destructive in nature.

Sabotage is another aspect of boredom. The idea to interrupt the normal or sameness experienced daily becomes a challenge to disrupt to interrupt life’s mind-numbing repetition. Researchers argue that boredom is indeed a counter-revolutionary device meaning it might mean a fight against the dehumanizing process of standardization.

The advantage of some traditionally situated individuals who serve in the armed forces is the fact that they may be sparked or stimulated by the chance of war, deployment, combat or anything else that differs from everyday life. Thus life is calculated by situations that produce risks and uncertainties.

Love Yourself First - fake people and a real world

Real World, Fake People – Talking to the Mirror

Desperate times call for desperate actions or so we are told. So many are so desperate to be liked or socially accepted, they engage in counterfeit behaviors and personalities to become more about them then themselves. Once involved in this bogus promise to be someone else, you lose all your social safety nets and expose yourself to sorrow and pain at a dime’s notice. In other words, you become a controlled puppet of false expectations.

So you become a lying hypocrite begging for more attention and self-importance as you dwell into the jungle of delusional manipulators who have nothing in common with you except your ego. Day after day, you promise yourself to maintain the unjustified status of your falsehood and fakery to please yourself and ignoring the facts around you that you are a lie to everybody around you.

You believe they love you and accept you for who you are when in fact, you have lied about everything that you pretended to be. As you seek unflinching support around you, your social circle narrows down to a few who call you a friend but somehow, you are something or someone they need in their fake lives as they leech off others fakery to justify their own.

Some seek the help of anti-depressants and others go to therapy to deal with their problems but in the end, the only solution left on the table is to get away from the garbled rants and raves of those you associate with daily and stop the needless spending of those luxuries that are not the necessities you need in life to be happy.

Through the medication or fake relationships, your ego is satisfied they love you for who you are and that they are with you because you told them what they wanted to hear as in reality, nothing genuine has been said or done. Finding yourself deeper in vanity’s debt, you become aware that this debt can never be paid off, which in essence is the fall of your own existence as a person.

A real person, not someone on a forged expedition in life, and who has a brain, would have to wonder why anyone would ever support such a facile rant or rave to be so ignorant of what is happening. Living with false flags all around them, it becomes harder to recognize the truth as time goes on and somehow, they never learn to pull themselves out of this charade of life.

To call a fake person a dim-wit would be in entirety, an understatement as they left an undeniable trail of fraudulent friends along the way to the realization of who they really are. But just as scary as it is, the bizarre re-entry into the real world when your mind adapts to common sense and allows you to see life as it really exists and brings your feelings and emotions back to where they belonged all the time.

This re-entry shouldn’t be much of a surprise to those who really know you well enough to see how you have changed and now back to where you belong. The sudden emergence of intelligence and sound thoughts enlighten hope that from now on, you will tell people exactly what you want them to hear and not what they want to hear.

Throwing caution to the wind, you have seen the dark side of this journey to the other side where life is nothing but phony and surrounded by die-hard supporters of such behaviors. No longer a great believer in the art of deception you no longer support the chicanery that has mired you for so long in a lost world that never offered you any hope or success of happiness. After surviving your stint in hell, you now feel the genuine concern for other people and their feelings.

Your mind, no longer out to lunch, has learned you possess a verifiable level of competence to be real and sincere in a world that is filled with lies and hypocrisy. You have avoided an inevitable catastrophe to occur as you now live a life that is no longer a lie and the lives of those around you are now recognized to be real as well as a match in made in heaven. This is how the world is, this is how your future unfolds as you stand before the elongated mirror and say to yourself, “mirror mirror, on the wall, who am I, really” and sigh with relief the answer stands right before you.

Has Civilization Surrendered? Part I - Is Civilization Culture?

Civilization as we have known it to exist has re-appeared as a barbaric monster it was back in the darkened days. A complex systems of societies developed with internal characteristics of customs and cultures, it has no reared its ugly head to attack the very basic foundation of a modern world seeking to take it back centuries into the earlier parts of the world’s history.

Most of us know of the early rise, growth and decline of earlier civilizations. Whenever the world reached a potential perfection of the quality of life, someone or something spoils the goodness of society and turns it into an evil advance of hate, greed or lust for power. These advances are often fueled by religious and spiritual norms of our civilization but spurred by war, violence and greed by political means and intrusions.

In other words, when the level of civilization reaches it peaks of goodness, can it be brought back down by the poor maintenance of such positive developments and growth by the negatively motivated, unethical relationships usually grounded in human immoral and criminal behaviors.

Perhaps we all overestimated the meaning of civilization. We know that the opposite of being civilized is to be ‘barbaric’ in nature and how that is defined is truly interesting as it is all based on cultures and practices that appear to be normal or unacceptable to different people divided into classes or groups of men, women and children belonging to a specific race, creed, religion, color or nationality.

To each their own, civilization may be applied to human groups indiscriminately based on the perception at hand of those who judge and sit in judgment of others aka bigots. Hence, we have changed the word to mean an acceptable standard of behavior, similar to etiquette. A phenomenon that casts a shadow on crude, unacceptable ‘barbaric’ behaviors.

But evolution and revolution has brought a deeper definition of the word civilization. It has now enveloped, encircled or wrapped up other characteristics that are both inner and outer layers of acceptance or disapproval. This has brought on two key words that describe today’s assessment of the world as we justify ‘racism’ and ‘imperialism’ with a wish to dominate others either religiously or politically.

Powerful nations have formed an alliance to defeat other nations deemed to be a threat to their own way of life or because of greed or power. Using the term under this description, we are now pitting one element of civilization, the more complex, refined, sophisticated society that is viewed superior to the other lower description of another element of the opposite civilization, the weaker barbarians and culturally dominate them into slavery or dominance or even death.

One cannot erase the fact that this same conflict exists also within a culture or civilization itself. A conflict that may lead to a civil war if not maintained or controlled to preserve peace by adhering to the expected integrity and cultural standards set by the foundation of such civilizations or groups of men, women and children as they grew up and enjoyed an education, freedom of religion and free-will thinking.

Think of culture as a specific set of ideas, religious beliefs, customs, arts, political wills and other elements that makes them unique. This includes the creativity or development of intellectual minds to embrace more intricate and personal aspects of the cultures that includes literatures, philosophical ideologies, architecture and other fabrics of life that makes them believe they are unique and elite.

Certainly, grounds for conflict and future clashes or political strife as these are all subject to perceptions and truths attached to the values placed on such items, categories or suggestions. What guides their thinking is their educational and intellectual resources provided to give them insights and recommendations of which to choose or follow. One can see the value of schools and media from this point of view. It should never be underestimated.

Serpent at the Door

Serpent at the Door

Every now and then, you hear a knock on the door that makes you shiver for your mind is telling you, there is something evil lurking outside your door. We all have lives to live and most of us do it with episodes of monsters and other creatures filling in spaces where we shouldn’t have gone or traveled too far. Always faced with curiosity or temptation, the door is a portal that should never be taken for granted.

Our lives are multidimensional in existence but there are times we end up in a single zone; a zone that is unquestionably the scariest of them all because it is filled with fear. Lifting the veil of fear, you find many reasons for taking on such draconian journey into a cave of darkness. There are no reasonable motives why you expose yourself to this but you do. It’s a way of life that tests us of our own free will and our ability to stand up to the unknown that lurks around us.

The fact remains we all do it at one time or another. We all travel through a darkness at one time or another as we explore the world around us either spiritually or emotionally. A true realization of fear comes when you are trapped inside this tunnel of darkness that seems to have no end. It seems to be leading you nowhere and you know you can ill afford any protection against the dangers.

Hence, you become subject to or vulnerable to a spiritual invasion, a darkness that can overwhelm the light and trap deep emotions. There is an invisible trap door to enter and a non-existent exit door to find. The entire journey is done through blindness as the eyes cannot find the light. Hidden, pale and filled with distress, you wonder how you will make out of this mess. Your senses tell you the door is near, but your hands are trembling with the fear.

There are no keys, no maps to unlock or find this door. When you travel the Serpent’s Trail, the interior is filled with darkness, shielding your eyes from the light. You must travel without help to find the exterior – there are no markers to help you along the way. Shaking mildly, you see the monsters and creatures, blocking your way to the door that you finally fund after frantic searching and traveling.

For a moment, your heart stands still, as the darkness tests your will. Ten feet away, you make your move as you are determined to leave this cave you entered freely while searching for something. Guided by only our instincts to survive, you have endured the presence of stealthy characters known to be your enemies and as the tunnel narrows, your efforts to make it past these enemies become very challenging.

Ten feet seemed like a hundred feet of maze, twisting turns and numerous trip hazards. Your mind plays tricks as you finally reach the light. In life, there are more than two paths to take- what is noteworthy is which path takes you to what journey. Knowing which path to travel is often complicated leading you to make many choices. Choices that are significant to sustain your progress through the darkness and complete the travel necessities in order to complete this journey.

There are no easy options, they are all equally cumbersome and hard for the final step you take in this quest is the step to freedom. Presumably you dodge the skeletons and bones found along the way, avoid the bites of the rats that are at your feet and the smiling faces of the characters you meet. This journey will never be easy. This journey will never end. Every time you open the door after hearing a knock, the serpent may be waiting for you to come outside and take a step on his favorite trail of doom and despair called the darkness. 

Break these Chains of Pain

Break these Chains of Pain

An Ode of Loneliness

I never believed that making money could bring you happiness or erase the pain that it brings without your awareness

Living your life in the bright lights and fancy places does not add up too much when there isn’t so much or enough to gain

When the blood runs deep and cold, frozen to everything you touch

It is time to reflect yourself and break these chains of pain

Walking away from your dreams, can bring you happiness

A difficult path to take away of what you thought would be enough

It’s just a matter of what you prioritize in your life, for happiness is not something you can buy or gain by selling your soul

If only, you could break these chains of pain

When alone at the end of the evening, is brings you nothing at all that life tolls

Searching for that peaceful easy feeling, and dreaming of the one you love

Can bring you the happiness you have been seeking and that was once lost

Struggling to be free from these chains of pain

Knowing it was hard to change your ways, you found new ways to settle down your life, without all the running around

Ending up with family, friends and lovers, while both feet are standing firmly on the ground.

So it’s true, I gave up being a dreamer so I could settle down my ways

Realizing the neon lights are fading, and thinking about the ones who made my life special in so many ways

I may never cross these highways of life again; it may be it will leave me all alone at the end of the evening

Somewhere, while driving alone, I saw a sign that told me to stop turning out and burning out as they there turning out to be the same

So instead of wasting my time, spending it chasing a dead and already fading dream

I freely chose to break these chains of pain

I turned my back to admit, I had nothing to believe in anymore and that to keep going, would get me nowhere

Resting on my laurels of the past, I knew I would be alright if I could just remain sane and not worry about tomorrow

Agreements aplenty, there were times when what we had just wasn’t enough to keep us going in that direction

So in the end, I chose to spend my evenings alone with my thoughts struggling within myself to bear these chains of pain

Sipping Coffee -

Sipping Coffee in the early Mornings – 

Life can’t get better than this.

Every early dawn, I pull the white metal framed lawn chair with white plastic straps into the brightness of the rising daybreak sun. A 12 oz. cup in hand, taking in the time God has given me for my retirement in life, I am spending these days dreaming about making my necessary pilgrimage towards the end of days to come. As soon as I sit, my puppy finds her way under the chair and stretches out her body to feel the cool damp ground underneath her as she watches over me.

Living in a place, not too far from the sprawling metropolitan city of Los Angeles, I view the sky, the birds, the living things around me with great peace of mind, knowing that I am well on my way to finding an eternal peace within myself and life itself. Reaching for the sky, I often think of the past and my times in Ohio, New Mexico, California and of course Arizona. Longing to see New Mexico once more, I plan to travel this year to see the hot air balloons rising into the cold dampened air around Albuquerque.

Needless to say, I have had some memorable days of excitement and roughness in my life but those days are all but left behind me now. For the time being, my life has settled to ashes and dust of the past and dreams of a glorious day after this coming sunset. Taking every day, one day at a time, I live it to only pray for tomorrow. My past has been filled with romance, adventure, laughter and sorrow. There were moments of war, conflict, harmony and peace but nothing that could bring me back to apologize for whatever I endured, was not for a better purpose than to live for tomorrow.

So at some point, we start asking ourselves, why did these things happen and for what reasons do we question our past; where is the glory, and all the regrets? What is home and where is my place in life when this retreat from the rest of the world takes place in life?

I have now engaged in a full circle of events, that carry no special meanings; however, these are positive engagements meaningful to me. This journey or paths that have been guided by fate and destiny, has embraced my life as I want it to be known when those last days comes in fact together. I want you to know who I was and where I came from but more important, who I am today. It is only right that my legacy is filled with facts that gives someone pleasures to remember me by and laugh about it together. Even if that someone is a remotely placed best friend from the past who knows me better than myself.

Fortunately, I have traveled frequently around the world from South Asia to Europe, from Europe to the Americas and from the Americas back to Asia. The most stressful journey was back to the Americas from Southeast Asia and now, for the very last time ever, I am settling in my spot in the circle of life that is ever glowing with the fires of passion and desires to be happy. Dealing with the reality that was slowly setting in, I am glad that I endured the challenges presented to me throughout my life, they shaped my mind, my heart and passions. In all this, reality set in. A reality that could be hard to face if it wasn’t so full of controversies and agreements.

You can’t buy love, happiness or pleasures; you have to go out into the world and find them and then earn the right to claim them for yourself, without the enablement of others. Standing on your own two feet, with one solid heart and mindset, bonded to make you stronger and give you the choices life offers when the journey is almost over.

Essentially speaking, no amount of wealth can buy you happiness, self-respect or understandings. They have to be gathered from the inside world and not from the external world we live in. thus we have to consider the fact that wealth, is not measured in money, but rather your own earthly possessions that you gathered on your journey that includes family, friends and lovers. More than anyone can ever realize, the dream is a living vision of the reality we have lived life.

These dreams cannot be shattered; they cannot be destroyed for their existence is forever. Dreams and visions, whether they are footsteps on the ground or in the clouds, enroll you in a class of wealth that can only be explained to be the good life God has promised us and loving every minute of it!

Suicide is not Painless

Suicide is not Painless –

Suicide is the Pain inside before death comes

During my lifetime, there have been numerous occasions that suicide came to mind, but for some weird or illogically driven spiritual or ethical reason; although never committed to carry it out all the way and be successful at killing myself. One of the first questions people ask is ‘how would you do it?’ first things first, is the question posed, ‘why do it at all?’ Why would you kill yourself?’ The answers might surprise you unless you have found yourself inside that circle of fire, despair or self-pity. The reasons are abundant and not easy to pin down to just one to cure all inquisitions.

Some people has expressed suicide because they were lonely and loneliness is a killer for many. Contemplating a final act to die is not easy. It takes a lot of planning and courage, yet the oxymoron of this paradox of life and death is that is also perceived to be a cowardice to die. What is curious is how cultures perceive this final act to die in different perspectives and make it socially or religiously acceptable or unacceptable.

Many revealed their suicide thoughts were major around their puberty or adolescent years with a special focus on teenage trial periods. This is when they are literally sitting on the edge of life and death, not really knowing how to deal with their mixed emotions. One cannot accept the fact that suicide is the ‘easier way out’ when it is so hard to actually do and do it right. This isn’t about dramatics, this is about living or dying because of confusing signals, frustrations, depression, feelings of despair and other negative influences in one’ life.

Nobody likes to talk about it; ask questions about it and discuss the reasons except to defuse an ongoing or active scenario where the suicide has begun to act out or take place. When this happens, it is a very dangerous situation aside from the fact that you are dealing with faceless strangers, temporarily lost in their own world, and not recognizing you or anyone else as a source for help or relief of the inner pain that crushes your heart and breaks it apart. Make no bones about it, you never know how someone is going to act, when someone you're talking to is on the edge.

When things get so stressful and you want to escape, suicide has been known to cure this for once and for all times. The best defense to despair and stress or high levels of anxiety is to give that person hope; making them see or feel that there are solutions around the corner with the help of others and surge an inner spirit to be able to fight off any suicide urges with sheer willpower and a burning desire to live. To tell them it’s a wasteful terrible thing to do does not help the reasoning for living.

               

Suicides are high in teenagers, veterans, transgendered persons, elderly and others diagnosed with a serious mental illness or physical or medical disabilities. The list is endless and for each of them, they are all feeling desperate in times where their lives feels like a living hell. Personally, my life has touched base with many aspects of hopelessness, abandonment, guilt, loneliness and much more. I have never condoned the act of suicide but I understand the journey a person takes to commit to it; they journey is more pain than anyone can ever imagine. I have made partial journeys that brought me to the point of decision and my decision has been to remain among the living for the time being.

              

Erroneously, I thought of suicide as a basic form or relief, comfort for myself and others and knowing that finally, all that has happened will end. The older I get, the easier it is to accept death. The matter at hand is when, how and why it happens, I suspect that someday, my means to end it all might come to a reality between wanting to live and wanting to die. I also suspect the reason for such thoughts would be a ‘burden’ to others as your life is sustained on a partial but temporary level the older you get.

               

Then the other side of the paradigm is the loss and how it impacts those you love and who you feel are carrying the ‘burdens’ of your life by helping you go through the end of days with as much comfort, reasoning or understanding, as possible. This has been a positive deterrent for many who have loving spouses, family and friends who support them always. Not wanting to destroy what they have for you, you owe them to live and die a natural death. In this case, death is not an escape, it’s just not a justified reason to die anymore.

               

Life has a light switch that can make the perception light or dark – how you live, feel and rationalize whatever you have or deal with makes the trigger to turn the light on or off. As long as you live in the light, your life is meaningful, fulfilling and contributing those things you care for and the people you love. When your life goes dark, nothing else matters and the darkness gives you the courage to take a leap to the dark side without intentions of ever coming back into the light. For many, they are unable to find the light switch, one more time and turn the blackness into light. 

               

Rationally, these thoughts won’t end anytime soon. Even rational people suffer from their own delusions. How it affects them will differ but many will find ways to keep up with life or let it go. Whether you stop eating, drinking or both, pop the pills, asphyxiation, hanging or shooting yourself -  you have kept your mind on doing it with some kind of Grace and Honor but in reality, you know that is all BS, as you grew up there was no Grace and no Honor in committing suicide.