Desperate Witness of a Risen Dead

CHAPTER XXIII

Anyway I decided to give myself a last chance to ensure myself that my suicide would be rational,
So I searched on the internet for a website where people could help people who want to die. I needed a reason to keep living to live, I couldn’t find it alone and I knew that probably my mental condition wasn’t really the best to find one.
I decided in the end to write on a forum where people with depression or other problems write to help each other or share experiences. It is also a forum about suicide, so it’s very important. I subscribed there and wrote very precisely all the things that happened, I tried to be short and at the same time to don’t forget anything, because I didn’t want people to misunderstand. I read the text many and many times till the day I found the courage to write.
I was happy when I wanted to kill myself, like euphoric and joyful because I would have finally solved every problem by eliminating my existence.
The day after they replied me and for many days people kept replying me even if the post was so so long.
The website name was Last Ship.
Inside that mist I found a village,
A light on the top of a hill,
I went there,
Almost dead and those souls who still shone with love and hope
Cured me with their knowledge.
With them I learnt many many things and I could finally defeat my insecurities partly,
I was finally feeling better.
They taught me many things,
They told me that actually I had done nothing bad,
Because I just behaved like a normal human being,
On the contrary, they told me that worrying so much about others
And searching always for the mistake in myself,
Being so sensitive,
Makes me noble
And the way I think, they said, is reasonable.
I wrote all the things in a paper,
All the things I’ve learnt with them
And by myself in those three months.

Death is never the solution, death is not redemption.
To hurt is unavoidable, especially it’s unavoidable to hurt those we love the most. Being angry, saying no… it’s just human, it’s unavoidable and sometimes being angry is healthy
Sometimes what makes you feel good, makes the other person feel good too. For example, if you want to meet new people, but your girlfriend wants you to pass more time with her, you shouldn’t give up on meeting new people to not hurt her, because you will feel bad, then maybe angry and she won’t be happy anyway because that mood of yours will poison the relationship. While if you keep meeting people, you will feel good but you will still meet your girlfriend and she will understand that she can’t enchain you like that and she will be happy too when she will accept it. Similarly if you want to be an artist but your parents want you to become a doctor, you shouldn’t become a doctor because you don’t want to hurt them, because you will feel bad and maybe screw up on your work, make your parents waste money on medicine university and so on. You would hurt them anyway. While if you become an artist, with time they will understand that being you their son, they must let you be free to do whatever you wish to be happy, because since they’re parents, their greatest wish should be to make you happy.
Sometimes mistakes aren’t what made a bad situation happen directly, but the expression of a previous mistake which was the true mistake. In my relationship with Jiwoo for example being angry with her wasn’t the true mistake because I tried hard to not be angry with her, just sometimes I am angry because I am a human being, everyone is angry sometimes, the true mistake was when we started our relationship, a long distance relationship that none of us could satisfy in a short time because we had school and not much money to stay with each other. I told her I would have come to Korea in one year when I would have started attending university in Korea, a thing I could do was leave school and go to Korea immediately, but it would have been a huge sacrifice. After two months our relationship ended, it didn’t even last three months. Long distance relationship are to be satisfied in a short time, they’re very hard and you need money or they will bring to this situations of anger and painful nostalgia of each other.
Few people go through their personal pain to acknowledge the true intentions of others, so we must be the first ones to do this.
To be optimistic is not to always think everything will be fine. If you smoke two packs of cigarettes everyday and think it will be fine, it will be an extreme optimism and hurt you. Being pessimistic is irrational too tho, thinking everything will never be fine in every situation. What is right is being moderately optimistic, thinking things will be ok in certain situations and not ok in others. Just you have to think rationally.
There are sensitive people and “normal” people. Sensitive people tend to make the past bigger than what it actually is, dramatize everything as if it’s the end of the world, while in truth they should see it for what it is to think rationally and find a solution without dwelling too much. (And I am one of those sensitive people)
Daily ceremony of inner peace: a man told me that I can meditate, close my eyes, take deep breaths and think of something good, like a sunset on the sea petting you with its warm lightbeams. By meditating you put to sleep all your thoughts except the one you’re thinking of. After that you feel clean, you feel your sight is clear together with your mind and you feel relaxed, with no tension. It could make me feel better for hours on days full of stress.
Art and outpouring: the same person taught me how through a hobby like drawing, writing or sculpting you can pour out all your pain, outburst your sufferings.
To love without annihilating yourself: there are selfishness, obsessive love and love. The border between love and obsessive love is dignity, which means to love yourself as much as you love people, to respect not only others, but yourself too.
The exceed of sorries is not understood. Even if you’re sincere, if you say sorry too much people won’t believe you anymore, because they start to suspect that your sorries, said so often, are false.
To think and to dwell: I had already explained it before, to think is to think to find a solution to a problem, to dwell is to think without really searching for it, wasting your energies, thinking when you should rest. Also if you think to find a solution for too long, your mind will be tired and you’ll automatically start to dwell, that’s why it’s useful to decide on what our of the day you should think about your problems.
Christian Utopia: those who believe in God tend to be perfect like Him. His love is endless and he has no limits. But a human can’t just be like him, the Bible might tell him to be perfect, never angry, always turn the other cheek, but the truth is that human beings are limited, they will never be perfect, they will always make sins and mistakes and hurt each other and they will never reach happiness. There are humans who still follow happiness and humans who don’t care at all about it, because they realized it’s useless. Happiness is a compass, but it’s like an unreachable star. I’m talking about everlasting and true happiness though, of course temporary pleasures and happiness, may they last one second or one month, they exist and they are reachable, but eternal happiness, heaven, is unreachable.
Constructive and distructive argument: just insulting someone when we're angry is useless. If you’re angry with someone you need to know two things, first is that you don’t lower your anger outbursting it, you just feed it, second is that if there is something you hate about someone else just say what the problem is without acting angry uselessly, or they won’t listen to you of course. You have to build a relationship, not destroy it.
Time loves: Time heals everything, hatred and anger are never forever, unless you’re Hitler.
The true role of religion: it is a concept that is said also in a Zen proverb: “If you see the Buddha on your road, kill him”. It means true religion is criticizing and being rational towards all religions, political ideas, phylosophical ideas and any other kind of ideas. Even if they tell you that you will go to hell if you don’t do something, always criticize. Religion is not outside us, in a book or in a priest, but inside ourselves, who think seriously about reality and the world without letting imposed ideas influence us, even if it’s unavoidable to be influenced by others a little.
Guilty feeling can be insane when you can’t be rational anymore. You have to understand what really is due to you to learn to feel guilty only when you should.
Ethical joke: I lived to reach ethics, but what will happen when I’ll die having reached ethics? Death will kick me and make me live again because I didn’t live anything, I just lived to get the car to drive on the road, but I didn’t drive on the road. Ethics is the medium, not the purpose.
Help if possible and if you want
Don’t be friend with those who exploit you
Don’t try to be accepted by those who don’t accept you
True redemption is here and now, true redemption is not dwelling about the past or mortifying yourself because of it, nor dying by anxiety because of the future, redemption is to analyze rationally the situation and your own ego.
You cannot stop a thought, what is important is how we relate to our thoughts and how we realize being distracted by them.
Don’t be afraid of being boring. It’s not moral to try to be nice just because others would leave you if you’re not. It is moral if you do it because of love, because you want to be a positive presence and give strength to others and cheer them up, distract them from their problems. Alsoif you explain  what you believe to be boring for others by exposing all yourself and all your soul, risking and preparing to be hurt in your frail parts, your passion will draw their attention and interest. But even if it doesn’t happen, what they think is not important. Take of their critics only what you think is right, because what you think is important.
You don’t have to be liked, indeed, you should like not to be liked, without hurting of course.
Problems aren’t enemies, but riddles in a labyrinth that you can solve with calm and inner peace. But not always it’s convenient to be curious of solving them.
Express your feelinga, always. Don’t hold things inside to make others feel better, you will be angry, you will hurt, they won’t understand you because they didn’t get to know your feelings and it will be worse.
To love and put faith in someone: to love means to entrust your feelings, so your heart, to someone. From that moment our heart is in others’ hands and anything could happen to it and at the same time we’re not omniscient about what’s in others’ hearts, about what others’ really feel about us. So we can only believe, trust them and what will happen, will happen. Even if we will get hurt, there will always be a way out of pain. You can’t know anyone, you can only believe who someone is, also you can’t know anything in general, you can only believe: till now your chair never broke when you sat on it, but who says it won’t happen later? We can only believe it will keep being like that.
If you have a doubt, don’t hide it, it will grow and divide people. Make it clear and union will grow.

That’s all I learnt in the beginning. I had a great time in Last Ship, I sadly accepted human imperfection and I tried to help other people on the website. I was so happy I could finally help someone, be useful, I felt proud of myself even if sometimes I hadn’t been able to help.
Our souls, perfect, unlimited, dreamer, trapped inside war machines, an imperfect and limited body.
We walk in the park, see a flower, hold it when we see how beautiful it is and then it withers away, turned into ashes. Anything we touch gets hurt.
We’re like souls trapped inside war machines.