The Will to Death

I was looking at my drawer from across my room. There was a gun in it. The drawer wasn’t locked. And my mind took me back to the times I had stood near the edge of a cliff, or by a bridge. I thought about something that scared me out of my wits. Was it because I was afraid of heights? Or was this why I had that fear? I would stand there, and imagine. I thought of things like, “What is keeping me up here?” and looked at the bridge’s defense. The rails. Those weren’t going to keep me on the bridge. Because I knew I could jump. I could jump off the bridge, and fall. And that scared me. It scared me so much, and the more I thought about it, the more frightened I got. Because the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I couldn’t help myself from jumping. It was the same as the Cliffside story. What was stopping me from propelling myself over the edge to my demise? Nothing.

Then again…. Was it really nothing? Was something stopping me…. from killing myself? Stopping me from…. doing something entirely stupid? I wonder. Sheer will power. Was that what it took for someone like me? Did other people feel this way? I really didn’t know.

I was back in my room, I was back to focusing on that gun. What was stopping me from taking it, and shooting myself in the head with it? Again, nothing. I then had an idea. Lock the drawer. But something in my mind was telling me, “Do not lock that drawer, Jayson. Do not lock that drawer.”

Do not lock that drawer?

I thought about it, and I wondered. Then I realized, that in many cases, once a locked drawer has been unlocked, it’s so much easier to get the gun and shoot yourself with it, than when it was never locked in the first place. Why?

Visualize yourself. And then put a circle around yourself. That represents your sheer will power. Now see the gun. Outside the shield. The possibility of dropping your defense is low. Now, imagine what happens, when you visualize a second shield, one that represents the lock on your drawer. This shield encompasses your first shield. Now you have two defenses. Then what do you see happening to your first defense? It starts to break down. It breaks, because you believe that that lock will save you from the gun, but what is it that you’re really trying to save yourself from? The answer, I believe, is yourself. You are they one holding the gun, and you’re the one who decides to pull the trigger. You have the lock… to save you from yourself? I don’t think so.

And besides… it is so much easier to break through things that you can plainly see, such as that lock. It is so much harder, to get back the will to not do something stupid, because you have the ability to. We all have the ability to do things, and we sometimes find ourselves asking, “Why aren’t we doing things because we can?” But the reason is, the sheer will to do what’s right and what’s not, always has a significant say in what we do. A moral compass comes with the ability to do things within your reach. Do what’s right.

Oh, and for those of you who really can't help yourself from doing crazy stuff, there ARE things like hand-gliding and bungee jumping, or skydiving, or cliffdiving, and all that.

-J