Holy cow, brother. Wow.
I could type paragraphs about how your post has helped me and
my depression in the span of ten minutes of reading it... Those last 9 bullet points at the bottom sum everything up for those of you readers who like a digest. Wow. I can't say the depression I'm in now is as severe as yours has been, but it's disheartening and makes my head throb none the less. I've
thought about suicide, not considered it, because the first thing I think about- and the thing I can't get past, is my parents, my family, et cetera. My opinion on it has
always been that it's selfish as fuck.
Thinking about religion depresses me alot- The uncertainty, what if I burn in hell for doubting the existence of God, this and that... But I try to sort that out with myself. (And I listen to my boy Ziggy Marley, too
I listen to "Love is My Religion" once even if it just holds me over to the next day of thought) If I find myself in a deep hole because of it, I'll look up that book.
Another thing that nags my mind is the decline of the American empire. Looking at history, Rome in particular, I'm nearly convinced that we're on our way down. However, warfare is no longer just swords and rifles. It's atom bombs, nuclear weapons, bunker-busters, hijacked aircraft full of jet fuel... It's not just mom & pop general stores anymore, it's entire global economies at stake- I try to look back into more recent history (the two World Wars)... And the entire globe got up after falling off their horses. Germany's economy is stable, everything's cool... But with more power in our weapons, and more and more malice in the Middle-East, how much longer can we last? Eh. Live while we can, then right? Y our post helped me there, too. Everywhere.
Your thoughts on our insignifance were what made me break down, not to tears but damn close. While I was reading your entire post, my mind kind of broke out into different diagrams, trying to sort things out, where do I relate, where do I not, or whatever. But biological insignificance (which I think goes along with doubting organized religion) has been getting to me a lot. Your points helped me out a lot there, and the thing that depressed me: "When you die, life goes on" now makes me upbeat--There's more insignificance after our insignifance, and it all adds up to a truly significant experience. If not to the universe, at least to our planet.
To sum up what I'd like to say to you, primetime:
Thank you.