Sometimes I wonder to myself, “what’s the point in carrying on? Life’s an extinguishable burden, perhaps it’s time you sought to extinguish it.”

Because to tell you the truth, I just can’t seem to see the point in this thing we call life. Sure, it has its moments. On occasion it presents as an incandescent platter, glistening in a sunlit room, full of variety and juicy pickings. It possesses the possibility of brief interludes of gleeful mirth, of unbridled laughter, joy and happiness. We create our own points, yeah, I get that, cool, whatever. But for the most part, for folks like me, it’s, life’s, a bag of blue, jagged rocks. It can only sink, its entire process a prolonged session of drowning.

I’ve not ever known life to weigh more heavily on the pleasant side of the scale. I’ve always seen it as an insufferable burden – a constant battle. To my mind and through my eyes life’s forever presented itself as some sort of gruelling turmoil, a turbulent ride evoking only fear, sadness, and incommunicable pain. So put yourself through it? Why?

Humans are blessed and cursed with this thing known as free will. Now, it’s highly probable that this thing we know as, and revere as free will, is a persistent illusion. A product of our mode of consciousness. But regardless of this point, we are burdened to believe that it is ours to manipulate. For, as a great man once said: “I don’t have any choice but to believe that I do have free will.”

So with this free will then, if we’re able to understand that we can consciously remove this suffering from our personal gardens, why don’t we? Why not just take that final leap into oblivion? Why not dive into the pit of infinite darkness, to forever plunge through the abyss of nothingness? Sadly, I don’t have an answer to this question.

And to be honest, even when I’m feeling as jolly as a German at Oktoberfest, the answer remains illusive. No matter my state, no matter which end of the happy/sad spectrum I’ve fallen on, this is not a question I’ve ever been able to satisfactorily answer.

Buddhists say that suffering paves the path to enlightenment. I can’t say that I disagree with this sentiment. It seems plausible, palpable, true. But what if the path’s end, enlightenment, rests in death, and in death alone. Yes, with death of the self comes bliss. This is the mantra I’ve lived by for almost fifteen years. I discovered, when I was about 10, that this self of mine was the problem. Not my physical self, but rather my imagined self. My self-concept. But now, 15 years later, I’ve determined that this imagined self of mine is so deeply ingrained into my physical self that the two are inextricably linked. It isn’t just a part of me, but it is me. Ingrained so far into my person that its removal is impossible.

Sure, sometimes my imagined self floats up and away from my body, disintegrating into the ether like steam from a boiling pot. I’ve been awarded moments of clarity – I’ve had glimpses around the bend. But in the morning, it all starts again. And again, I’m rooted in this body, in this self, the only thing existent from which escape is impossible.

So what is the point then? Why not just down a bottle of painkillers? Or jump in front of an oncoming train scheduled to pass through at a quarter past 8? Or buy a thick rope, tie one end around my neck and suspend the other from a balustrade?

I don’t know.

I wish I had some sort of hopeful end to this post. I really, really do. But I don’t. I know that a lot of my writings are cynical, to say the least. Through my words pain springs, and dullness shines. I try my best to lather this pain in humour. I usually try my best to provide some sort of clever anecdote, to outline the shining gem in the rough – of course, not for my readers (who to my mind don’t exist), but for myself. Tonight though, I’ve nothing.

What is the point? Really!? I have not a fucking clue.