Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcrdcf.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sdcrdcf!barryg From: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) Newsgroups: net.suicide Subject: Re: misc. ramblings Message-ID: <2353@sdcrdcf.UUCP> Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 12:18:35 EDT Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.2353 Posted: Wed Sep 18 12:18:35 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 23-Sep-85 00:30:24 EDT References: <199@ikonas.UUCP> <230@umich.UUCP> Reply-To: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica Lines: 40 Summary: I used to think about suicide on and off when I was a teenager. In those days my life wasn't under my own control. Between my parents and social expectations, my main freedom was in the sphere of my own imagination. I was stuck with finding potential friends among those my same age, and found very few. When I got to be an adult, economically independent, living in my own home, I stopped feeling suicidal. Apparently you have accepted a world in which you are not free. Not free to look for friends. Not free to get another job. Not free to be happy. I think you should question your assumption that you are enslaved to your work, to your disgruntled clients; that you need "skills" to make friends. I think you should look around for a headhunter and try to find a job in which you won't work more than 50 hours a week. I think you should decide if anything else interests you besides your job--and try to get some other enjoyable activities, if only giving the benefit of your experience to Special Interest Groups. I think you should decide you have a right to pursue happiness (the Declaration of Independence says you do), rather than merely a right to be a workaholic or to commit suicide so secretly that no one will know. By the way, I've lost one friend who was murdered and one friend who died in a household accident, both when they were despairing. I know neither death was technically suicide, but both of them ended up depressing *me* for years. Because I'd never be able to be with that person again. Because that person had died in pain. Because that person had died while having given up on life and I'd never see him happy again. Even if you fool your friends into thinking it's an accident, it won't make them any less unhappy. Groups of loners who seem quite tolerant of unsociable people include SF fandom, wargamers, and computer hackers. You might consider looking around for nearby conventions. Alternately, perhaps you should try to get into hobbies mundanes have decided ARE suicidal. Skydiving, SCUBA diving, witchcraft, D&D, fugu eating....Either way, the way to find friends is to find out who YOU are and what YOU like--and then look for others who resonate with that, not to change yourself. Why would anyone want a friend who's fond of his counterfeit self, not his real self? --Lee Gold Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com