Vocabulary

"How are you?" "Eh, I'm alive." I know you accept that and move on. Perhaps you think that "I'm alive" is in some way preferable to "I'm suicidal" or perhaps "I'm dying." Perhaps it is. But when you ask me how I am and all I can say is "I'm alive," it isn't a good thing. It means I continue to breathe but that is all that can be said for my existence. I'm not happy. I'm not fine. I'm not anything even remotely approaching those things. I am alive, and that is all.

"How are you?" "Not doing so great, honestly." This is the most honest I will be with you. And it's an extreme understatement. "Not doing so great" is how I say "there is nothing left for me but death." And while maybe that isn't obvious, it's still simply stunning to me how many people will just leave it there. Do you think you've done your friendly duty by simply asking? I can't be too upset, I guess. By my understatement, I've given you the out you so desperately desire.

"How are you?" "I'm really depressed and suicidal." I don't say this much. Why not? It gets the exact same response as if I said "I'm fine," or "I'm alive," or "not doing so great." Which is to say, it doesn't get a response at all. Or if it does, the response goes something like "I'm sorry to hear that." You know what? If that's all your response is, an indication of how my depression affects you, it is better that you don't ask at all. At least then I could delude myself into thinking maybe someone would care if I opened up, instead of the hopeless realization I've opened myself up again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and it makes no difference.

"I want to die." The translation here is, "I want to die."

"There is no hope for me." I will never get better. I've come to accept that, intellectually. I've looked at the past and the present and made a reasonable prediction about the future. I expect that when it sinks its way into my ever-hoping heart, I won't be around to scream pointlessly into the void anymore.

"What can I do to help?" "I don't know. Nothing." Although I may feel like that's true, and in the long run, it really is, there are things I wish you would do even after I've said it won't help. Here they are: talk to me. Just talk. Tell me all the things I don't believe about myself and the world. Not religious things. But tell me it gets better, even when I tell you it won't. Tell me I am worth fighting for. Tell me I mean something, to you. Tell me even if it never gets better for me, that I've made a difference, to you, to someone. Tell me that even if I died right now, today, I wouldn't be forgotten. Tell me I'd be missed. Talk to me. Tell me that sometimes life just isn't fair. Tell me I'm allowed to be sad. Tell me you know I can't help it, but you also know I'm strong and I'll survive. I won't believe you, but tell me anyway.

"<a sad post about depression>" Translation: I'm screaming into the void, hoping it will answer, hoping it will care. Be the void.

Eternity

I don't think hell exists. I think the concept is entirely at odds with the concept of a good God, and if God is not good, he doesn't exist in the form the Bible says he does and if he doesn't exist, it stands to reason hell doesn't exist either. After all, people have seen the light in near-death experiences, but I haven't heard of anybody feeling the flames.

I don't think heaven exists, either, but I'm actually far more afraid of being wrong about that. As humans, we do tend to have an inherent fear of dying. The solution to that seems to be the ability to live forever, but is that truly what we want? I know people who look forward to heaven as an extension of their lifelong love of learning. And while that's cool and I would love to learn everything there is to know about the universe, what happens after that? It might take a million years to learn everything (and if you managed that, wouldn't you be at least a lowercase god?), but what will you do in the million million million years after that?

The most spiritual of Christians (or at least the ones who want to appear so) tend to answer that with "you'll be praising God for all eternity." Leaving out what size ego God must have to need even a fraction of the 7 billion people currently living (forgetting all who've lived or will live) telling him how good he is constantly for eternity...is that really what you want? If so, why aren't you in church 24/7?

Anyway. The idea of eternity is terrifying to me. Even if I had the most perfect life, I wouldn't want to have it forever. No, the certainty that life ends is much more hopeful to me than the idea that it might continue indefinitely.