By The End of Hope

Years each of us spends as a pilgrim, as we see the yard of graves as far as our sight goes in distance, we acknowledge the death in various colors through assorted histories of humankind, across diverse cultures. The nature teaches us that death is part of world's cycle, like how plants that grow from soil must someday wither according to the changes of life.

Life of creatures must be lived as long as it has not yet reached its endpoint. No matter how harsh or cruel can sometimes, or rather most of time, life becomes, we must keep going, we must endure it. Some of us might be saved by delusion we apply on ourselves, pretentious jubilance by mortal possession. Some others, when successfully attain the knowledge of awakening, understand that life is factually full of misery.

As children, we were dazzled by so many wonderful wonders around us, especially when we were told about tales of fairytale. Hope and imagination possessed our mind and body, but that did not last for long. Growing up, or rather growing old, makes us realize that joy itself is a fraud. And when we have queries about it, our elders only mock at us by saying "get used to it."

Struggle after struggle people must keep up with, mourning after mourning, and it seems to be what is right to do. Even so, to the point of too much, they finally summarize the reality of truth is pain. Albeit we try to be contented as much as we can, loss is all we get, sorrow is all met. At the end of this ironic journey is vein of vain.

Those who have come to this consciousness begin to question what thereupon should be they grasping, what possibly is awaiting in the future; the answer is none. Afterlife is too metaphysical. Religious promises won't do any real deal in real world. They get to know that everything does not bring them satisfactory feeling.

We want to be healthy while doing sickening habits. We want to stay famed while fading as time keeps flowing. We want to be youthful endlessly while aging is the stream of life. We want to be in possession of unlimited wealth while the flow of money is like game of dice to begin with. People who have them don't ever feel enough of them, and people who don't are suffering; both sides anguish.

Knowing they are inevitable to occur, and knowing there's no way out, some of us start to be hopeless, lost in their way. They stop believing in everything as there is nothing to believe. They've found the truth of life, but cannot find the answer to the questions. This desperation turns them into an empty vessel, and at some points, they decide to end the lifespan of that vessel, by their own hands but nature.

When the evidence takes place, we are surprised by the facts that some people commit the action of self-homicide. Some of us may blame and badmouth them for being irresponsible, irreligious, weak, selfish, moron, and more of negativism can depict the mindset. Some others feel empathetic and devastated at the same time for knowing someone, possibly they are fond of, has crossed to the other side of this life. Either we believe in God or not, we pray for those who have finished their last breath on earth.

Conversation talking about our curiosity starts to swing here and there. The news about what may drive the suicide is blown up. Everyone seems to wonder, and they seem that they cannot believe for what has happened. That may be so, but the truth is, deep within we all know the excuse. We do understand the thinking of those who commit suicide, and we actually are just ones of them. We ourselves often wish for death to come upon, as soon as possible.

Too many despairs to be mentioned here if we have to list the cause of lamentation, but we all know how exhausting and soul-draining life is. Don't be hypocrite saying we never, at least once, decided to throw in the towel for good.

Even so, we pretend that we don't see it. We act as if we didn't care. We keep pushing them to the corner, we keep mentally torturing them. We believe that it's just how society works, it's normal and right in many ways. We think it is okay for people to be in pain, to be damaged. We turn bright hopeful children into dimmed twisted people.

Should we still ask what's the cause of murdering oneself? Shouldn't we look at the mirror instead? Our hands may be clean, but we might've killed people out there, either right now, in the past or future. Just like how we have been inflicted, we also carve the trace of destruction within others. We are the ones who set the time bomb on them. We take them to reality, but we don't give them answer of liberation, the same way we never have it.

At the same time, we are the victims and also the perpetrators of life's crime and harshness. Now whom are we going to blame?

One way or another, it is a question too why we are yet to die, despite knowing we have the capability to decide it right away, especially after all of the words above.

Why am I still here, writing this post, even after I contemplate all of this? Why am I still a survivor? What is it that makes me continue to live on?

I have, or may have, found not only the consciousness of world's painful truth, but also my own answer. It is an answer that makes me realize that I may have killed people out there, and thus I want to at least save one life, which is inside of me; a realization that makes me understand that I've been a victim and also a perpetrator all along, and thus I don't want to add my list of crimes by performing another murder. It is an understanding of how retaliating toward this life by ending my own existence would never be the answer.

Suicide, as far as it is defined, is in fact just the same homicide as other kinds of murder. Put aside which victim is assassinated, the result is just the same. The earth won't wait for anyone to keep revolving, the flowers keep blooming and then moulting. Nonetheless, the story of someone who dies won't stop there. It is the same as reading stories in novels; after we finish the books, we may no longer know what will happen to the casts, but their journeys actually never stop, it's just not told. The same way, what may await in the afterlife, or rather after the death, is incertitude, but without doubt there is something; something we won't know before the new pages of the life's sequel are opened.

Hence I continue to step either forward or backward, but stop. I see there is a possibility for the way of liberation to be found. I think if I keep going, I may be able to somehow set myself free. There are things I haven't seen and people I haven't met, and my salvation may lie somewhere there. Although this life will show cruelty if I keep living its pathways, at least that is a certainty I am guaranteed, and I may find a way how to deal with; while death is unknown for what's going to happen there.

I choose to gamble on this certain suffering instead of incertitude of death. For me, uncertainty is more painful than life; not knowing what could be done is scarier than anything. Anyhow, this life also offers horizons to pursue, to explore, and within one of those horizons might we find our answers.

*This is a tribute to Robin Williams, and others who have been through the same option as him. I wish them a peaceful rest ever after*