My friend, there is nothing to fear from death. Anyone who asserts survival is most important knows little about life, and even less about death. Suicide can be cleansing. Death is like rebirth, and it gives you a fresh start. It takes you into the realm of enlightenment. Many tribal cultures use death as a tool. Shamans deliberately kill themselves and are brought back to life for the purpose of enlightenment. The reason why they (meaning western society) declare your decision to be pathological is because they have a deep seated fear of death. It is essentially an irrational fear on their part, and their attitude could be more easily labeled pathological then your condition in my opinion. People think that there is so much to lose from death, when on quite the contrary, there is so much to gain. If you do kill yourself, if you do not have a spiritual guide, you will have to brave the river yourself. The more karma you have the harder it will be to cross the river. Just remember that karma is baggage that CAN be dropped. Karma clings to our spiritual essence, but that spiritual essence is, itself, not solid in nature. Once you have completely accepted your fate, you can clear that spiritual essense of karma by dissapating into nothing. With nothing to latch onto all your karma will be set free and it will then be easy to cross the river into the beyond.
Wanting death isn’t particularly a problem either, unless you are ditching all your responsiblities in life. Death is just another realm of exploration.
I think this particualr attitude is healthy…
Might I suggest a near death experience, or some other form of spiritual revival? There is more to life then just this life, or this body. Nihilists reject this out of fear of the unknown. It is that rejection that is an illness.
How about in my case, or the case of the shaman? I want to live, but I also want to die. That is the cycle of nature, and I have accepted it completely. Both living and dying are intriguing in their own little ways. It just so happens that death is a lot more enlightening. At times when I hate life I do crave death. But death to me is a beautiful thing (not trying to be gothic here). Only pathology itself has made death a pathological process. So it is pathology which is pathological, not death. Death is enlightening. Death is liberating.
Hey, life is seriously over-rated at times. If you ever have a near death experience you will know what I am talking about. Some people, after having a near death experience, are actually angry at the doctor or whoever for bringing them back to life, and taking them away from their enlightenment!
any decision made to end your life can hardly considered a rational one. if you take so much as a second to think about it you realise what a foolish decision suicide is. unless you know there is something for you on the other side of death, which noone can, then you must assume there is not, in a worst case scenario. in which case, even ifthere is nothing to keep you here, there is even less once your dead. even if you simply savour every feeling or sensation that you experience. the taste and texture of your food, the sifting patters of light, the sound of others voices or even the feelings of warmth or cold. delight in it all, as there is nothing else. even take joy in your despair, as it is it which raises you above the other animals, and tells you that you are alive.
besides which, as bullshit as it shounds, i spent a year on and off in bentley psych ward here in perth. i enjoy every moment of my life. i stared into the void and realised there was nothing for me there.
basic rule for animals which includes humans as well is to survive. this is why wanting to die is seen as something that is wrong and depression is the warm up to suicide so that is seen as an illness. like you said about goals and things, people live to achieve them but the end result is always the same - emptiness. once you have achieved what you wanted you are left empty until you find your next task or goal to achieve. but if rather than desire you goal, you should desire emptiness or rather just not desire then that is also depression. but being that depression leaves you empty, it means there is a lot of room to fill which due to human nature makes us sad as well because we hav an inate love for all things and want to make them ours. i cant help you out but if youcan fill yourself up with whatever you want be it sex, material posessions or just a nice dog then you should but remember you will always end up empty
Lenore wrote on anti-depressants:
I couldn’t disagree more. I find suicide a most dreadful thing. I don’t want to say its “abnormal” or anything like that. I don’t even really understand what that means. I just think that its terribly sad if anyone decides to do that. Also I think that in many cases its morally very wrong, since it puts one’s friends, relatives and people in society at large in deep pain. Maybe thats not true for old, very ill people, but certainly for young people.
I also think that various ways of getting oneself active, particurarly with other people, is the best way to get rid of a depression. You feel more pleased with yourself when you’re active.
I had given up on this topic. LOL Since ppl seemed in such an all-fire rush to say, Sure! Sure! Do it, do it! Do it! Do it. Life? Fuck it! Do it, man! Kill yourself if feels right! Just… Do it!
LOL 
Again, outside the subject of philosophy, suicide is an unnatural act; it goes against the grain of life. How can you not get that. The only way a near-death experience can enlighten you is if you make it back to tell about it. Remember that.
Alien when you first showed up here I thought, wow! at last in a sea of atheists - an insightful spiritual brother! 
But of late you and I have been disagreeing on subjects quite diametrically, haven’t we? I don’t want you to think ill of me for expressing my disagreements with passion - I hope that you can separate out my disagreeing with you from disrespecting or insulting you - because I do not wish to do either of those.
That established, when you say things like, “Might I suggest a near death experience…” (lol!) and “Only pathology itself has made death a pathological process. So it is pathology which is pathological, not death. Death is enlightening. Death is liberating” - I sneer, scoff, scowl, and laugh. I mean, how can I not? I think that is doublespeak. No more (or better) than a nihilistic-analytical application to life: Nothing is sacred, not even life; and it is only “the study of disease (pathology) which deems cessation of life as a negative thing.”
Jeesus Chr- Scottie? Beam me up! lol At some point, something’s gotta matter; be sacred, or worth standing up for. I make my stand on alongside the_patient, and celebrate life. 
(we seem in the minority here)
Well “John”, actually I would have to agree with you. I believe life is definetely worth living. If you come to a point where you are tired of life or you just dont enjoy living any more, maybe you should simply try something different. Try approaching life in a different way. True who we are is a result of certain circumstances, but we have choices that can be made in order to change what type of person we are. Once you change as a person(do whatever suits you best to the point to where you will be happy). Even if this means you will obtain more of a joy from life by being immoral, whatever the case might be, this is better than sulking and pondering why u dont enjoy life. Once you become who you would rather, or simply change some of your outlooks, your perception of the world will change with you.
You said that, “It just so happens that death is a lot more enlightening?” How do you know that? Are you not lying here because of an assumption that you have no proof of? And you say, “Death is enlightening. Death is liberating.” Then how come you are not enlightening yourself by popping yourself in some river, which is what you suggested to Anonymous (Guest) to do? Do you not want to be enlightened yourself but would only like others to be so? Ha!
When Anonymous says, “Why should anyone give a damm what society thinks?” Why are you telling Anonymous that, “I think this particular attitude is healthy?” Why don’t you tell Anonymous that he/she is that society too, or does Anonymous not consider themself a part of society anymore? Ha! Caught you red-handed Anonymous. You need meaningful interaction with this society of which you are a part of to bring meaning back in your life. You have shunned society, the society has not shunned you. And this interaction can be with things even, find a hobby, clean your house regularly and more often, wash your clothes by hand, etc.
Alien Corpuscle Bath, you say to Anonymous who has a serious depression problem that,
“If you do kill yourself, if you do not have a spiritual guide, you will have to brave the river yourself. The more karma you have the harder it will be to cross the river. Just remember that karma is baggage that CAN be dropped. Karma clings to our spiritual essence, but that spiritual essence is, itself, not solid in nature. Once you have completely accepted your fate, you can clear that spiritual essense of karma by dissapating into nothing. With nothing to latch onto all your karma will be set free and it will then be easy to cross the river into the beyond.” And you also say, “Death is like rebirth, and it gives you a fresh start. It takes you into the realm of enlightenment. Many tribal cultures use death as a tool. Shamans deliberately kill themselves and are brought back to life for the purpose of enlightenment.” Really? You think death enlightens you eh? For what? For life that you couldn’t even live? Are you stupid? And my dear these Shamans don’t kill themselves, they kill others or persuade others to commit suicide just like you are trying to be a Shaman for Anonymous. It’s just like that Sept. 11 tragedy. The real perpetrators the evil idiots/geniuses did not die in that tragedy, the innocents, the gullible, the ones that were persuaded into committing suicide did.
And where you say, “Wanting death isn’t particularly a problem either, unless you are ditching all your responsiblities in life. Death is just another realm of exploration,” I have to overlook this line of yours because it loses meaning in the face of so much outrageous posting by you in this topic.
Alien Corpuscle Bath,
I will sincerely pray to God for your “enlightenment.” In which case I will ask God to give you a thousand lives in this very life so you can relish popping yourself “in the river” countless times so you can be ‘liberated.’ In which case, God will say, Beena what a good idea. This way, Alien Corpuscle Bath will not only have to eat his own words but will also get a taste of his/her own medicine too. Wish granted! Boy what ENLIGHTENMENT!
“how and why is a rational choice not to live, depression?”
Life to me means everything, it is exuberant, depression, joy, sorrow, happiness, sadness, faith, hope, loss of hope, achievements, no achievements, etc. So a choice of not wanting to live anymore would mean that I don’t enjoy this life anymore because essentially life has lost it’s exuberance and there is more of depression and so the person is termed as depressed.
Now the problem I believe lies in the fact that a depressed who enjoys life no more has started to believe that live is just supposed to be joy, happiness, exuberance, hope, achievements and none of their opposites. But life is a balance and so it is both. If you see too many hardships, you have to find a way out, it is your responsibility and no one else’s. My dear, when life was happy for you was it someone else’s responsibility? No! Then you have to find a way out of your depression. Life is a balance that’s why there is death or there would be no death of itself and then we would all be in a real big mess! Think about it 
For all of the above, “how and why is a rational choice not to live, depression.”
I have not read all the posts but there seems to be a large agreement that desire is what makes us depressed. I agree with this statement to a degree. But not totally.
If there was no desire, surely this means you feel the desire to be depressed because others don’t have this desire. You feel different. You become more adventurous usually taking risks that others see pointless just because you do not care. Such as not looking before you cross the road. You still have some common sense to not go jump out of a car. Well maybe some of you do, but i don’t think the average person does this.
I think that a depressed person has a type of paranoia and wishes to understand something. Misunderstanding of a circumstance could make you paranoid or the way others treat you or an incident that has happened. Depression is a way of inner lonliness which you feel cannot be expressed because others think this is abnormal. Thus a “mental illness.” Of course, doctors blame this on some chemical in the brain that is unproportional to what it should be.
I classify myself as depressed sometimes, because of a certain past of events and family issues. I have a paranoia to life and sometimes others. I am not going to continue to bore you with this but maybe it is a feeling that you are worthless, no one cares. But the feeling that someone cares will drive you on or how your future will unfold. This is what leads depressives to not commit suicide. Most depressives do not wish to commit suicide, they just want the pain to go. Of course, eventually they get so depressed that this can lead to suicide or irrational actions.
Of course, this is only my opinion because it is what i think. You do not have to agree with it but you may argue against it.
More importantly, why is there a comma in the question?
You misunderstand me John. I don’t disappreciate life. I do find life sacred. I just don’t think that death is that bad of a thing either. Death isn’t always bad like people make it out to be. Suicide nine times out of ten probably isn’t the right thing to do. But for some people it may be the right choice, and I think that for those people, there should be the right to choose whether or not you continue living. And yes, the study of disease always views death as a negative experience. I have died before, and found it to be a positive experience. True I came back to life, but then again, we all come back to life at one point or another. What about a person who is being constantly tortured by some malicious group (i.e. nazis)? If they decided to kill themself, rather then continue being tortured, would you say that is a bad thing? What about a person who is suffering greatly from an illness? Should they not have the right to kill themselves? I bet you would say they should. So in this case, death is not the illness, but the cure. Death shouldn’t be something to be feared. Nor should it be something to look forward to. It should just be appreciated for what it is. It is a natural process of life, and whether you like it or not, you are going to die. Life is good. Life is precious. But death is not evil.
I have already accounted for these scenarios earlier in the topic ACB. 
I don’t believe you ever died, and this of course is where we part. (8)) I do not believe that the shaman possesses any more magic than the mind-altering drug he is using to make himself and others think so. I do not believe in the existence of sorcerers able to tranform themselves into different animals, battle malevalent spirits, or pull a Jesus Christ and resurrect themselves after any real period of clinical death.
I just do not believe in these things, and for very good reason. (Read on. )
Transmigration of the soul, or reincarnation if such thing does occur, is quite different from tripping on some exotic tree bark and thinking “Wow i’m dead!” Again, all of this is not to meanspiritedly poke fun at your beliefs, but I’ll remind you that this is a forum rooted in a real science–psychology. Remember my PM to you. [edit :: here i was referring to PM-discussions from several weeks back; i just now got your latest!] When you can come back to me and say, “John i have a dozen Siberian Shaman behind me ready to prove we can die a clinical death and resurrect ourselves under laboratory, observable conditions!” then I’ll be seriously interested, as will the rest of Western society. 
Okay, first off, I wasn’t referring to a trip, I was referring to an accident that I had. That accident is part of what got me so interested in such things. And:
John, there have been expiriments where shamans have been observed dying and then being brought back to life. In most trubal cultures the initiation into shamanhood requires being killed through drowning, a shot into the heart, or whatever, and then being brought back to life. Check out that book I always advocate called DreamTime and Inner Spaces by Holger Kalweit.
LOL. Somebody give that man a ceeegah.
Luke,
It’s because the person is asking, ‘how is depression, a rational choice not to live?’ The person asking just reverted the two phrases and brought depression at the end. Understand now?