What makes someone truly desire to live? And in contrast, what makes someone truly desire to die?

[MiamiJacket84]

I'm just curious as to what people think. Are there truly things that can push a man from one side to the other? Or is it just an inherent affinity in some people more than others? Is it an accumulative effect?

[cashew78]

I would like to posit one observation: I don't think people just want to die; people just want the anguish and pain they feel to end, especially if that pain is like an itch you can never find nor scratch.

[litethatnevergoesout in reply to cashew78]

having had too many friends and ‘family’ take their own lives, there is an underlying connection to actually wanting to die. I’m sure that saying one wants to die has lost its potency anymore since it’s a statement used to blanket temporary misfortune but it’s still a valid point to many people who have lost touch with the world and everything and everyone in it, including their most beloved e.g. their children.

[litethatnevergoesout]

I think about this daily, Jacket.

desire to live = joy as in happiness and love hope for the future. value of self and purpose

desire to die = despair as in current situation is intolerable and there’s no hope for the future. no value of self and 0 purpose.

[Hobbitfeet in reply to litethatnevergoesout]

♥️

[Adlon57]

Losing the desire to live, the incentive to live, what to look forward to, knowing there is just going to be the 'same again', no chance of anything good coming around the corner, in perpetual pain, and knowing there is NO chance of waking up "I'm completely cured!", I've got to the stage of waking up "What form of pain can be in store for me today?" actually looking forward to the anguish of this every day! I'm tired of putting my 'routine' to my family and friends, actually almost wanting to finish my 'routine' so they can be relieved, by my demise!

[Existing]

I'm probably one of the few who loves to speak to these questions.As a teenager my depression started and I made a few suicide attempts, and I was hospitalized a couple times. I had no desire to live, but later saw it the difficulties of a troubled teen, and now I was out in life on my own as an adult and all that was over.

But it wasn't over. My depressive episodes continued and I managed them, and some deep spiritual truths came out of years of contemplation. I understood I needed to fulfill this life and could finally put suicide away as an option. This required me to prioritize things that were meaningful, to make life worth living.

Skip ahead to me now in my 60s. I still can't wait for this life to end, and I have always wondered why people want to live so badly.

I have no fear of death, in fact I feel like I'm actually meant for the next dimension of life, as I believe we are all spirit beings who continue in many other forms, dimension, planes, beyond this.

I felt this longing for death even in my best periods of life, and unfortunately, I'm living out the worst time of my life for the last several years of trauma, loss and inability to reconcile my daily emotional pain and isolation, and a tragic empty canvas. And I think about death more than I ever have, now feeling like it would be kinder to die than to continue existing in the hopeless emptiness of the stagnation. My only relief is knowing that it will eventually end, and I'm getting closer.

So, in response to people who don't think I really want to die, I always have, inmgood times and bad,, and its not morbid to me. And I've come to think that less people are loving life, and that its more about fearing death. That we have such a stigma in our culture about even thinking about death, that people don't, and the fear of the fear remains, and so of course they cling to life. I have seen so many people living in horrible situations, whether its an abusive relationship, drugs, a debilitating health condition as a result of their lifestyle, and I think "why don't they just end their miserable existence?" They are already dead inside just to survive.

And the irony of that is because for me accepting that as your life is what I call Hell. As long as we choose to continue living, we deserve better than settling for misery. I need to live a full meaningful life of experience, sharing, and contributing what I have become to make the world a little better than it was. Making a difference in peoples lives is when I feel most alive. ...sadly, I'm trying to believe a can get the help and support I need to make it to that point, before I can't take anymore of existing outside the world, not able to find a way back in.

[Rockhound11-2 in reply to Existing]

Your words make sense to me. The logic is there. However, how I feel is in direct conflict with my own logic. It's the tiniest spark of curiosity surrounding purpose that nags at me.

[Rockhound11-2]

Suicide is an act of control. There are many reasons a person may feel the need to take such permanent measures of control. Some of those reasons could be: having had control of ones own body taken by force, illness or circumstance, and the fear of consequences. It is an act of control that represents the prevention of suffering. Just a bit of my perspective.

[hypercat54]

If you have yourself in life then everything else is just a bonus. The problem is many people try to find themselves in others instead which only leads to disappointment and heartbreak.

The only person you can ultimately rely on is yourself. You are the only one who can decide what you need and want.

If you truly have yourself you will be happy even if you are miserable if you get what I mean.

[Hidden]

PAIN

[litethatnevergoesout in reply to Hidden]

yes craigliving4jane, shout it out.

I’ve heard pain is an illusion. possibly from a lyric to a song.

emotional pain and physical pain are linked to changes in the prefrontal cortex and cingulate cortex, the brain that processes the physical pain are significantly similar to the parts that process emotional pain, it’s argued emotional pain is far worse than physical pain. I think it depends on the person really, I wouldn’t dare tell someone living in chronic pain daily that physical pain is any less real or as valid as emotional pain.

[Zhangliqun]

Are there people with a congenital optimism and others with congenital pessimism, meaning due in large part to innate brain chemistry? Yes, I think that's self-evident.

But this question of a desire to live or to die, where these desires come from and what they really are, needs some serious unpacking and forces us to the intersection of purpose and nihilism, philosophy and theodicy, and, yes, theology.

What is this desire to live?

A combination of basic joie de vivre (joy of life) in day to day things, punctuated with the occasional big positive event, accompanied by deep gratitude for them, and a sense of purpose and meaning that sustains you when happiness is put on hold by difficult circumstances.

What is this desire to die?

Here there are a few possibilities:

1) A sense of joy or pleasure in the dying process. (This one I think is just theoretical, few if any people actually have this one.)

2) A curiousity about, a looking forward to, or even a joyful anticipation of what comes next.

3) Not really a desire for death per se but a desire to end terrible suffering for which death is just the means.

The desire to live is made possible only by gratitude and and a sense of purpose/meaning.

The desire to die, especially this third one -- other than due to terrible physical agony -- is made inevitable by the lack of these things.

When people say in songs or poetry or movies that "you can't last a day without hope", they have no idea just how right they are. If you truly believe there is no hope, then in the absence of some intervention to reinfuse you with hope, you will take your own life, and quickly. (Anyone who says otherwise just hasn't stared down the barrel of absolute hopelessness.)

Happiness is impossible without gratitude. Gratitude is impossible without something or someone to be grateful to. Gratitude also implies purpose and meaning because it implies that your existence and that of the object of your gratitude are somehow important.

Joy is next-level happiness; it can exist -- and even thrive -- in the middle of terrible agony when happiness and pleasure run away like rats from a sinking ship.

Joy is possible only with a sense of purpose and meaning that dares to find that purpose and meaning NOT MERELY IN SPITE OF SUFFERING BUT THROUGH IT. (This is not -- say again, not -- to be confused with masochism because this joy is in the purpose of the suffering, not a twisted erotic pleasure from the suffering itself.)

Which brings up the question, can suffering really have a purpose?

Spoiler alert: YES.

Many say God does not exist because there is "too much suffering in the world". In addition to not telling us or (even asking themselves) what the "right" amount of suffering is, they never pause to ask what a world with no suffering would be like.

The most spoiled, difficult and demanding people you meet are consistently the ones who have experienced the least amount of suffering. They also consistently inflict the most suffering on others. The wisest, calmest and kindest people you meet are almost invariably those who have experienced profound sorrow.

I meet college students who, in spite of having kind affluent parents, go on and on at the drop of a hat about their lives being living nightmares. And I meet people from other countries where they were dirt poor and under fierce persecution who tell me stories of the people there looking for any excuse to get together and party in celebration over the slightest bit of good news.

All this tells us something about suffering that runs totally against popular opinion and culture -- at the very least, it could well be that it is not only inevitable but necessary.

But if suffering is really necessary, how much is too much? Or too little?

This is knowledge that runs well beyond the paygrade of humanity, especially given that it will be different for each of the 8 billion of us, and moreover will vary with each of us from minute to minute and year to year.

But a good rule of thumb is the sculptor's rule: to find out what's essential or important about a sculpture, throw it down a hill and the unimportant stuff will break off. When we get thrown down the hill, the frivolous, vain, petty, etc, break off. When we get to the bottom, we can respond by becoming bitter and trying to glue all these things back on or become wise and see how unnecessary and destructive they always were, leave them behind and move on to the important stuff, to our purpose.

Does humanity -- collectively or individually -- actually have a purpose?

If all reality is just matter and energy and the universe has no moral or spiritual dimension, the answer is a flat no. Dennis Prager once said:

Only if there is a God who created man is man worth more than the chemicals of which he is composed.

But is the universe really without meaning or purpose? About this, CS Lewis wrote:

If the universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning. Just as in a universe with no light and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have found out that it was dark.

Or in other words, that we seem to be infused with this instinct for meaning and purpose is by itself compelling evidence that we and the universe really do have meaning and purpose; otherwise we couldn't conceive of such a thing.

There is evidence of this instinct in some of the comments in here so far. Existing says that in spite of desiring death,

Making a difference in peoples lives is when I feel most alive.

Rockhound11-2 agrees with Existing's description of a confusing up-and-down view of life and hope, yet,

It's the tiniest spark of curiosity surrounding purpose that nags at me.

It is an indelible instinct in humanity that there is something beyond the physical world, and to which we are ultimately accountable and which gives us purpose. Any instinct so consistently found in any other creature would be hailed as a major discovery in biology. But because of its otherworldly implications, it is dismissed.

Some of you are now thinking, okay maybe there's a God and suffering sometimes has a purpose. But cut the crap, Zhang. What could God possibly have in mind in allowing us to have these terrible mood disorders that have millions of us on the brink of jumping off a ledge or eating a pistol? (As I almost did in '94.)

I can't give you an exhaustive explanation but one thing is for sure -- God want to use you as the 911 call for others like you who will die by their own hand if you are not there to bring them compassion, encouragement, and especially the light of our experience and how we're getting through it.

Fight your illness with everything you have and appeal to your Maker for help, you will need it. Someone else's life depends on you giving the Devil and his death cult of despair the middle finger.

If that's not meaning and purpose and inspiration to live, there is no such thing.

Now get back to your post and FIGHT!!!

[Teaching]

Hard life can push you to the other side. You may be feeling something no one else can see or feel except you.