163 lines
8.9 KiB
Plaintext
163 lines
8.9 KiB
Plaintext
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IF YOU WISH TO REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THIS LIST FOR ANY REASON
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just send an email to listserv@netcom.com containing only the line:
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unsubscribe snuffit-l
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DO NOT WHINE TO THE POSTMASTER. DO NOT SEND UNSUBSCRIBE MESSAGES TO:
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snuffit-l@netcom.com, listserver@netcom.com, coe@netcom.com
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-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Dear brethren, today I would like to share with all of you a letter we received
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last Monday. Our reply was sent out the next day, and so far we haven't heard
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anything back. It's hard to know exactly what's going on right now, but things
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are surely coming to a head; obviously this is a very exciting and special
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occasion for all of us.
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>>>>
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You've convinced me. I am going to kill myself tonight. Or at least, I want
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to. But I don't know if I can. I've tried before, and I just don't have the
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nerve. Oh why oh why does it all have to be like this? Isn't there some way
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for it all to be resolved? Well, I guess that's why people become Christians,
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so it can all make sense and feel nice. I was a Christian once, and though I
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wasn't always happy, at least I never felt the anguish I feel now. The anguish
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of NO FEASIBLE SOLUTION, the anguish of complete failure. It could have been
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really great, but somehow everybody managed to fuck it up and now all I can
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think of is killing myself. But WHY? I mean, if I've managed to be selfish
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for this long, selfish and blind, why can't I just go on doing it? I mean,
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come one, if there's one thing I lack, it's conviction. I could just forget
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all about this COE thing and go home and eat spaghetti (hey, at least I'm a
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vegetarian, right? That's just about as futile as my killing myself) and go to
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rehearsal for the totally irrelevant play I'm in and then later tonight go to
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sleep and dream my dreamy dreams. Except that tonight I'm not going to,
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because I'll also think about Tim and how he's going crazy and I can't stop
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him, and about how I don't have enough talent to make it in the real world, and
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how I'll never have enough money, and my friends are all back-biting sons of
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bitches and everything in the world is beyond reclamation and when I'm numb
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with despair I'll slit my wrists and lay in the bathtub, just like that guy in
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Caligula.
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Vivien. it's not even my real name.
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<<<<
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Whatever your name is, keep up the great work! You're very close! Wanting to
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kill yourself isn't quite enough though. You've got to actually DO IT. It's
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either that or continue to experience the tremendous PAIN of a life lived
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badly. The only other option, of course, would be to take responsibility for
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your life, acknowledge your tremendous debt to the Earth, and devote the
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remainder of your existence to repaying that debt as best you can. Sounds
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crazy, but there it is. We're all struggling with this here at the church.
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Self-knowledge is a one-way process: you can't go back to being selfish and
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blind, because you just can't. What's worse, unlike a less intelligent person,
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if you fail to change, you'll have to live with the knowledge that you knew
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better, and wilfully chose death over life anyway. Isn't life fun? Just
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remember, you CAN change, if you really WANT to. It's the WANTING to that's so
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difficult, not the changing. Once you really and truly want to change, there
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is nothing in the universe that can possibly stop you, and quite the reverse,
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the universe will actually start HELPING you, incredible though it may seem
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now. I don't pretend to know exactly HOW you should change; I can only speak
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for myself, and say that if I ever manage to develop any gumption in this life,
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the first thing I'll do is sell everything I own, move to Arizona, and try to
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make some kind of contact with the Hopi elders who still live there. From
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there, who knows where I'd wind up, but I'm sure it would be somewhere
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different. It's either change or die, and there's not all that much time left
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to make up your mind. In the meantime, I thought the following quote from
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Jeremy Rifkin's _Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World_ might cheer you up...
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>>>>
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[An American] is probably the most unhappy citizen in the history of the world.
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She has not the power to provide herself with anything but money, and her money
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is inflating like a balloon and drifting away, subject to historical
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circumstances and the power of other people. From morning to night, she does
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not touch anything that she has produced herself, in which she can take pride.
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For all her leisure and recreation, she feels bad, she looks bad, she is
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overweight, her health is poor. Her air, water, and food are all known to
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contain poisons. There is a fair chance that she will die of suffocation. She
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suspects that her love life is not as fulfilling as other people's. She wishes
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that she had been born sooner, or later. She does not know why her children
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are the way they are. She does not understand what they say. She does not
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care and does not know why she does not care. Certain advertisements and
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pictures in magazines make her suspect that she is basically unattractive. She
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feels that all her possessions are under threat of pillage. She does not know
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what she would do if she lost her job, if the economy failed, if the utility
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companies went on strike, if her husband left her, if her children ran away, if
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she should be found to be incurably ill. And for these anxieties, of course,
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she consults certified experts, who in turn consult certified experts about
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their anxieties.
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-Wendell Berry
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<<<<
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Now let us take a moment, and pray for the deliverance of this soul from her
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suffering, whether by life or by death, so be it.
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We have been corresponding with a certain inmate of the Michigan Department of
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Correction who wishes to be know as R7, and he brings us the following words of
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wisdom: "...if you feel the need to kill yourself with a gun, insert it in
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your mouth, use hollow points, and wrap a towel around your head, thereby
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avoiding the messy aftermath, and have a well-considered death." Many thanks
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to "R7" for this advice, and also for the following excerpt from _Human
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Diversity_ by Richard Lewintin:
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>>>>
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The only certainty about the future of our species is that it is limited. Of
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all the species that have ever existed, 99.999% are extinct. The average
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lifetime of a carnivorous genus is only 10 million years, and the average
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lifetime of a species is much shorter. Indeed, life on earth is nearly half
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over: Fossil evidence shows that life began about 3 billion years ago, and the
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sun is due to become a red giant about 4 billion years from now, consuming life
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(and eventually the whole earth) in its fire.
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<<<<
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Of course, such facts help us to realize a more universal perspective, but do
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not in any way lessen the reality of our immediate spiritual problems. Because
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our time is necessarily limited, one might carelessly conclude that all is
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lost, and that nothing matters, when, as we have seen, exactly the reverse is
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true. In the Newtonian world-view of the Octopus, all of the universe is
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merely matter in motion; every event is infinitely repeatable, and reversible,
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so much assembly and disassembly of machines. Small wonder that the citizens
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of modernity lose hope, and compassion as well. How can the soul survive, when
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its every experience is believed to be repeatable, the mere consequence of
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deterministic laws? Why should the soul strive to master itself in this
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instant of time, when another instant will do just as well?
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Only when each instant is seen for what it truly is, does the soul begin to
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feel its power to change itself, and the world as well. With each breath, the
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mystery of the universe unfolds as a vast web of perpetual change; death is
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certain, and transformation is everywhere around us. Each moment becomes a
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unique opportunity, never to be repeated in the life of a soul, or even in the
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life of the earth. When the passage of time is felt and understood, the
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smallest deed becomes an act of power, its consequences irrevocable. When the
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finality of death is accepted, time becomes infinitely precious, and all life
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becomes sacred. In this extraordinary world, real responsibility begins with
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proper reverence for the *limitations* of life.
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"Only if one loves this earth with unbending passion can one release one's
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sadness," Don Juan said. "A warrior is always joyful because his love is
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unalterable and his beloved, the earth, embraces him and bestows upon him
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inconceivable gifts. The sadness belongs only to those who hate the very thing
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that shelters their beings."
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-Carlos Castenada
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"No excuses ever, for anyone."
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-Albert Camus
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-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Rev. Chris Korda The Church of Euthanasia
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SAVE THE PLANET! KILL YOUR *SELF*!
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