Discussion relativizing death to diminish our anxiety (repost because of an error)

[Nirrend]

I'll start by saying that this subject is not meant to incite anyone and the objective here is just to pour out our fears, to philosophize and to live our daily life more serenely.

I know that among the things that allow people to free themselves from their fears, the discussion, the liberation of emotions as well as the acceptance are part of what allows to live calmly with these themes.

What would be ideal, therefore, would be that people who wish to discuss their fears and put them into perspective, in the greatest possible empathy, do so here.

DEATH in theory

Plato said that "to philosophize is to learn to die". In the sense that death is inevitable and to know how to question oneself, to reason oneself, to expose oneself to fears, is a way to accept this inevitability, because finally to live, makes it possible to train oneself to have to die, like a jump that the human would repeat of the years before arriving there. We could even play it down by seeing it as a skill, a capacity to be acquired.

I also think that death is not to be feared in the sense that millions of people before us have passed through it, many people up there (according to a religious approach), whether they are close to us or not, are watching us and waiting patiently, watching us proudly acquire this skill.

Epicurus presented death as the end of everything and even of consciousness, whereas Plato thought that the soul, freed from the bodily envelope, became everything in the end. For him suffering would be somehow linked to the imprisonment of the soul and both thought that death would be the abolition of suffering.

From a purely biological point of view, death is characterized by a stop in the functioning of the Central Nervous System. However, with hindsight, the human body represents only a tiny part of what death is,

Finally, it is the thought that characterizes this death, it is the cultural and genetic fears.

The fear of « Nothingness »

I think that the fear of the postmortem void is actually a condensation of two things.

1) The survival instinct, which is a biological reflex

2) A parallel made between the emptiness experienced consciously or not, in everyday life (death, loss, mood, failure, Acrophobia) which, by several mechanisms, condenses into an abstract and frightening concept which would be the state of death.

But if we think about it, this fear is unfounded, because it depends on an automatic reflex, which anticipates a serious event in an exaggerated way (e.g.: screamers in movies) and devoid of rational (Instinct of Survival) and this fear of the void is not founded either if it is explained by a parallel made between something that we lived in the daily life and something never lived, it is to compare the incomparable.

So, we could ask ourselves, "Wouldn't the fear of death be unjustified ?"

The fear of suffering

The individual focuses more on the negative than on the positive. If we make the connection, we focus more on the time before death than after.

It is therefore clear that mental ruminations and over-interrogation promote anxiety and fear.

In itself, suffering is defined by three dimensions:

1) Physiological (this is pain as it actually exists)

2) Behavioral (it is the reaction to it)

3) Cognitive (it is the thought, and the idea that one has of it)

In reality, pain is defined more by what we think of it, than by what we actually feel. An anxious person will say to themselves more "this is serious", this worrying thought will create behavioral agitation and the perceived pain will be increased tenfold.

"So thinking would be suffering ?"

Finally, in some cases of brain injury, if the pain fibers are affected, patients no longer suffer. They may cut themselves, they may fracture themselves, but they won't be in pain. Only, for them, let's take the example of the placebo effect. If I'm a doctor and I give them a powder (sugar here) and make them think it's a drug that makes them feel pain again, and I pinch their hand, they'll be able to feel the pain but only because what I've told them has influenced their thinking.

So the belief determines the perception

The Survival Instinct

The survival instinct is the genetic tendency present in every species of living being (it seems to me). This instinct just determines a will to subsist but with the only motivation to not disappear. It is an uncontrollable reflex that is difficult to modulate.

The survival instinct is divided into 3 distinct phases :

1) Escape : if, for example, a lion runs into me, my brain will activate the emotional networks and I will run away without knowing why. Because if reason had been activated first, I would have to analyze, evaluate the risks and finally act. In instinct, only the emotional part is activated, which is what allows us to act without needing to think to act.

2) Riposte : if escaping is futile, the body will automatically put the individual in a posture of counter-attack, which gradually involves the reason to evaluate if the chances of surviving or winning are possible. If victory is possible, the fight begins, if all is lost in advance, the body can decide to run away again or to abdicate, which leads to the 3rd point.

The 1st and 2nd dimensions constitute what is called the "Fight-Flight Response".

3) Inhibition : behavioral responses are abolished. In animals, for example, one lets oneself be eaten, terror is the because most animals only act or function on their instinct. Conversely, inhibition can cause the abolition of anguish and the acceptance of fate (in terminally ill patients, death comes, they are terrorized and then abdicate and even prefer to disappear).

Conclusion

On the whole, to think is to be afraid, because thinking creates the spectacular and has difficulty conceiving the abstract. What is interesting is that studies show that the lower the IQ of people is, the less likely they are to become depressed, because they ask few questions and act rather than think. Learning to think less, or to accept the few thoughts that do occur, is both a possible redemption towards recovery, but also a way to live with fate more serenely.

The survival instinct depends biologically on the presence of a threat, but if thought no longer determines the abstract and death as a threat, perhaps this instinct no longer has any reason to exist and anguish will be reduced. To live is to learn to philosophize and to philosophize is to learn to die, let's not forget that there is one thing we know, this is that we don't know and therefore, to live death or to react to the concept of death as if it were a word in the language that we didn't know yesterday, would be a way of no longer reacting severely to it.

Some Ways to Accept

-Avoid thinking too much and learn to just contemplate without thinking

-Adapt the breathing to decrease the heart rate (e.g.: I count 1,2,3 in my head while breathing in, I freeze for 1 second, I breathe out while counting 1,2,3 in my head while breathing out and I repeat this several times a day to calm my heart and my anxiety. Do this for at least 5 minutes each time).

Exposing yourself to fears (closing your eyes and imagining yourself in a hospital bed and dying, exposing yourself to situations that frighten you) and at the same time, thinking and de-dramatizing death, thinking rationally and calmly. If you do that, do it entirely without interrupting it and be sure to have confidence in you doing that.

-Talk about it, write about it, meditate on it

-Live the emotion that death arouses until the end (if you wake up anxious because death is frightening, you should stop for a moment, dig into what is creating this emotion and let the thoughts and emotions come without holding them back, then, once you have calmed down, you can reason and play it down).

-Get information and read up on the subject, so that this concept becomes concrete and no longer abstract.

Finally, I hope that everyone here sees this post as a way to recover and regain the will to live, I sincerely hope so. In any case, I hope that the debates and the outpouring of emotions will take place here,

I hope this topic doesn't seem encouraging, I don't know if I should leave it here

In any cases, I wish you all a good evening !

 

[Pain In The Ass]

I'm gonna get ready for bed and lie down and read all of this long post, because I'm really into this way of thinking - I tend to use death statistics myself, to ease my anxiety and get me to realise that I am not special, and my death is a drop in the ocean, and most humans who ever lived died young and weren't ever happy! But I will read your whole post once I'm in bed...

 

[MementoMori81]

This is a great post, and idea to be honest.

I've long believed the notion that attitudes toward death in particular need to change in modern society. We act like it hasn't happened, and brush it under the carpet instead of accepting it for the natural part of life that it is. I feel that, alongside the obvious survival instinct, this lack of willingness to discuss death openly and honestly, to learn to accept it for what it is would go a long way in removing the anxiety so many feel when contemplating it.

The way I came to accept death and non existence was by confronting it, often, and honestly. I've found it useful to consider the billions of years before I was born, the billions of years that I have no knowledge, sense or recollection of. It didn't inconvenience me, it didn't harm me because there was no 'me' to experience it. Like that period between going to sleep and waking on those nights where you have a dreamless sleep. It's as though you blink, it's night, you open your eyes and it's daylight. You remember nothing of the interval between, and it is likening this to the trillions of years that will rush by after my death that makes me feel comfortable with my passing.
This is just my take on it, it's the thing that ultimately stopped me from worrying about it so much. I'm now at peace with it, and by that I mean whether I choose to exit myself, or whether I go naturally.

 

[FuneralCry]

Thank you for sharing the post.
To me, death can never be something to be feared, it is inevitable for us all and I see it as being the end to all suffering, nothing can hurt us when we are dead. There is nothing to fear as we simply cease to exist. Of course many people find it hard to let go of this life as this existence is all they know, they cannot comprehend what it is like to not exist. I personally look forward to leaving this life behind and becoming nothing.

The thought of dying does bring me a lot of comfort and in comparison to death, life seems so temporary and meaningless. Everything that hurts us now and causes us pain will die when we do. Our lives really are so insignificant.

 

[Nirrend]

Very interesting point of view, and i totally agree with your example of "dreamless sleep". I'm very anxious with death and to ctb but, in any cases, If I imagine myself to be condanated to die tomorrow, whether I like it or not, tomorrow I would be no more.

But this "unknow" seems terrifying to me. And thinking about it, I even wonder if what scares me the most would not be just leaving people I love behind, telling me that I will be found.

The scariest part of this is not to die, but to die alone.

This is a great post, and idea to be honest.

I've long believed the notion that attitudes toward death in particular need to change in modern society. We act like it hasn't happened, and brush it under the carpet instead of accepting it for the natural part of life that it is. I feel that, alongside the obvious survival instinct, this lack of willingness to discuss death openly and honestly, to learn to accept it for what it is would go a long way in removing the anxiety so many feel when contemplating it.

The way I came to accept death and non existence was by confronting it, often, and honestly. I've found it useful to consider the billions of years before I was born, the billions of years that I have no knowledge, sense or recollection of. It didn't inconvenience me, it didn't harm me because there was no 'me' to experience it. Like that period between going to sleep and waking on those nights where you have a dreamless sleep. It's as though you blink, it's night, you open your eyes and it's daylight. You remember nothing of the interval between, and it is likening this to the trillions of years that will rush by after my death that makes me feel comfortable with my passing.
This is just my take on it, it's the thing that ultimately stopped me from worrying about it so much. I'm now at peace with it, and by that I mean whether I choose to exit myself, or whether I go naturally.

Thank you for sharing the post.
To me, death can never be something to be feared, it is inevitable for us all and I see it as being the end to all suffering, nothing can hurt us when we are dead. There is nothing to fear as we simply cease to exist. Of course many people find it hard to let go of this life as this existence is all they know, they cannot comprehend what it is like to not exist. I personally look forward to leaving this life behind and becoming nothing.

The thought of dying does bring me a lot of comfort and in comparison to death, life seems so temporary and meaningless. Everything that hurts us now and causes us pain will die when we do. Our lives really are so insignificant.

I also agree, the more reason dominates our thinking, more easily death will be accepted.

Finally, in many cases, it is people and loved ones who accentuate this anxiety. These are the taboos.

We will never see doctors, psychologists or the government talking about this, reassuring us. This collective unconscious of terror is still difficult to distance.

 

[Pain In The Ass]

I'll start by saying that this subject is not meant to incite anyone and the objective here is just to pour out our fears, to philosophize and to live our daily life more serenely.

I know that among the things that allow people to free themselves from their fears, the discussion, the liberation of emotions as well as the acceptance are part of what allows to live calmly with these themes.

What would be ideal, therefore, would be that people who wish to discuss their fears and put them into perspective, in the greatest possible empathy, do so here.

DEATH in theory

Plato said that "to philosophize is to learn to die". In the sense that death is inevitable and to know how to question oneself, to reason oneself, to expose oneself to fears, is a way to accept this inevitability, because finally to live, makes it possible to train oneself to have to die, like a jump that the human would repeat of the years before arriving there. We could even play it down by seeing it as a skill, a capacity to be acquired.

I also think that death is not to be feared in the sense that millions of people before us have passed through it, many people up there (according to a religious approach), whether they are close to us or not, are watching us and waiting patiently, watching us proudly acquire this skill.

Epicurus presented death as the end of everything and even of consciousness, whereas Plato thought that the soul, freed from the bodily envelope, became everything in the end. For him suffering would be somehow linked to the imprisonment of the soul and both thought that death would be the abolition of suffering.

From a purely biological point of view, death is characterized by a stop in the functioning of the Central Nervous System. However, with hindsight, the human body represents only a tiny part of what death is,

Finally, it is the thought that characterizes this death, it is the cultural and genetic fears.

The fear of « Nothingness »

I think that the fear of the postmortem void is actually a condensation of two things.

1) The survival instinct, which is a biological reflex

2) A parallel made between the emptiness experienced consciously or not, in everyday life (death, loss, mood, failure, Acrophobia) which, by several mechanisms, condenses into an abstract and frightening concept which would be the state of death.

But if we think about it, this fear is unfounded, because it depends on an automatic reflex, which anticipates a serious event in an exaggerated way (e.g.: screamers in movies) and devoid of rational (Instinct of Survival) and this fear of the void is not founded either if it is explained by a parallel made between something that we lived in the daily life and something never lived, it is to compare the incomparable.

So, we could ask ourselves, "Wouldn't the fear of death be unjustified ?"

The fear of suffering

The individual focuses more on the negative than on the positive. If we make the connection, we focus more on the time before death than after.

It is therefore clear that mental ruminations and over-interrogation promote anxiety and fear.

In itself, suffering is defined by three dimensions:

1) Physiological (this is pain as it actually exists)

2) Behavioral (it is the reaction to it)

3) Cognitive (it is the thought, and the idea that one has of it)

In reality, pain is defined more by what we think of it, than by what we actually feel. An anxious person will say to themselves more "this is serious", this worrying thought will create behavioral agitation and the perceived pain will be increased tenfold.

"So thinking would be suffering ?"

Finally, in some cases of brain injury, if the pain fibers are affected, patients no longer suffer. They may cut themselves, they may fracture themselves, but they won't be in pain. Only, for them, let's take the example of the placebo effect. If I'm a doctor and I give them a powder (sugar here) and make them think it's a drug that makes them feel pain again, and I pinch their hand, they'll be able to feel the pain but only because what I've told them has influenced their thinking.

So the belief determines the perception

The Survival Instinct

The survival instinct is the genetic tendency present in every species of living being (it seems to me). This instinct just determines a will to subsist but with the only motivation to not disappear. It is an uncontrollable reflex that is difficult to modulate.

The survival instinct is divided into 3 distinct phases :

1) Escape : if, for example, a lion runs into me, my brain will activate the emotional networks and I will run away without knowing why. Because if reason had been activated first, I would have to analyze, evaluate the risks and finally act. In instinct, only the emotional part is activated, which is what allows us to act without needing to think to act.

2) Riposte : if escaping is futile, the body will automatically put the individual in a posture of counter-attack, which gradually involves the reason to evaluate if the chances of surviving or winning are possible. If victory is possible, the fight begins, if all is lost in advance, the body can decide to run away again or to abdicate, which leads to the 3rd point.

The 1st and 2nd dimensions constitute what is called the "Fight-Flight Response".

3) Inhibition : behavioral responses are abolished. In animals, for example, one lets oneself be eaten, terror is the because most animals only act or function on their instinct. Conversely, inhibition can cause the abolition of anguish and the acceptance of fate (in terminally ill patients, death comes, they are terrorized and then abdicate and even prefer to disappear).

Conclusion

On the whole, to think is to be afraid, because thinking creates the spectacular and has difficulty conceiving the abstract. What is interesting is that studies show that the lower the IQ of people is, the less likely they are to become depressed, because they ask few questions and act rather than think. Learning to think less, or to accept the few thoughts that do occur, is both a possible redemption towards recovery, but also a way to live with fate more serenely.

The survival instinct depends biologically on the presence of a threat, but if thought no longer determines the abstract and death as a threat, perhaps this instinct no longer has any reason to exist and anguish will be reduced. To live is to learn to philosophize and to philosophize is to learn to die, let's not forget that there is one thing we know, this is that we don't know and therefore, to live death or to react to the concept of death as if it were a word in the language that we didn't know yesterday, would be a way of no longer reacting severely to it.

Some Ways to Accept

-Avoid thinking too much and learn to just contemplate without thinking

-Adapt the breathing to decrease the heart rate (e.g.: I count 1,2,3 in my head while breathing in, I freeze for 1 second, I breathe out while counting 1,2,3 in my head while breathing out and I repeat this several times a day to calm my heart and my anxiety. Do this for at least 5 minutes each time).

Exposing yourself to fears (closing your eyes and imagining yourself in a hospital bed and dying, exposing yourself to situations that frighten you) and at the same time, thinking and de-dramatizing death, thinking rationally and calmly. If you do that, do it entirely without interrupting it and be sure to have confidence in you doing that.

-Talk about it, write about it, meditate on it

-Live the emotion that death arouses until the end (if you wake up anxious because death is frightening, you should stop for a moment, dig into what is creating this emotion and let the thoughts and emotions come without holding them back, then, once you have calmed down, you can reason and play it down).

-Get information and read up on the subject, so that this concept becomes concrete and no longer abstract.

Finally, I hope that everyone here sees this post as a way to recover and regain the will to live, I sincerely hope so. In any case, I hope that the debates and the outpouring of emotions will take place here,

I hope this topic doesn't seem encouraging, I don't know if I should leave it here

In any cases, I wish you all a good evening !

This is the most useful and interesting thread I have come across during my whole time using SS, other than the obvious method threads which are practically useful.

It's now late and the Xanax is kicking in, but one thing I think you maybe overlooked is the role of the ego (more in the modern negative sense), the sense of unachieved ambition, or the 'will to power' - if you had grandiose ambitions, and a good dose of low self-esteem, which seem to go hand in hand, and you believed achieving these things would be your path to redemption, and they have been left unachieved, this can, and does for me, make the idea of CTB utterly terrifying! This ultimate achievement, in my mind, was going to erase ALL previous mistakes - it would've been to win the game of all games, and all the many games I lost over the years, and all the failures, would've been erased by this ultimate achievement, this ultimate win - and that being left unachieved is more terrifying to me than anything else, because everything was riding on it. Maybe feeling this way isn't that common, but I doubt it, because most feelings are common!

 

[MementoMori81]

Very interesting point of view, and i totally agree with your example of "dreamless sleep". I'm very anxious with death and to ctb but, in any cases, If I imagine myself to be condanated to die tomorrow, whether I like it or not, tomorrow I would be no more.

But this "unknow" seems terrifying to me. And thinking about it, I even wonder if what scares me the most would not be just leaving people I love behind, telling me that I will be found.

The scariest part of this is not to die, but to die alone.


I also agree, the more reason dominates our thinking, more easily death will be accepted.

Finally, in many cases, it is people and loved ones who accentuate this anxiety. These are the taboos.

We will never see doctors, psychologists or the government talking about this, reassuring us. This collective unconscious of terror is still difficult to distance.

Thank you. It's certainly always left me feeling comfortable with death.

You're right, too. Doctors, psychologists, government, even relatives and friends and so on brush the topic of death under the carpet, especially death by self deliverance.

I do understand why, but at the same time I don't. Why should something that will happen to us all be considered such a taboo or morbid topic?
It's exactly as you've just touched upon when you said;
"If I imagine myself to be condanated to die tomorrow, whether I like it or not, tomorrow I would be no more."
That is a great and honest way to view the subject of death. It is absolutely inevitable that it will happen, to all of us, and that there is nothing we can do to stop it. I always tell people to accept it because it's liberation itself.

For me, the subject of death, the nothingness that I believe comes after doesn't worry me. On the contrary; it fascinates me.

Edit: I'll add this as I found it a good one to listen to:

 

[Nirrend]

I see what you mean, indeed, the self and narcissism can push to many things.

After, studies tend to show that a great confidence in ourselves, that a great conviction in our ability to act, makes it possible to achieve things. And finally in this, we can assume that trust does a lot in our life. In this, it could play as a communicating vessel if we follow your reasoning:

Low esteem and great ambition --> moral pain
Low esteem and low ambition --> suicidal ideation
High esteem and low ambition --> Ok
High esteem and great ambition --> state of equilibrium

In itself, phobic patients with high esteem, overcome fears and heal better, so those with high esteem feel more able to self-control and tolerate SI better?

This is the most useful and interesting thread I have come across during my whole time using SS, other than the obvious method threads which are practically useful.

It's now late and the Xanax is kicking in, but one thing I think you maybe overlooked is the role of the ego (more in the modern negative sense), the sense of unachieved ambition, or the 'will to power' - if you had grandiose ambitions, and a good dose of low self-esteem, which seem to go hand in hand, and you believed achieving these things would be your path to redemption, and they have been left unachieved, this can, and does for me, make the idea of CTB utterly terrifying! This ultimate achievement, in my mind, was going to erase ALL previous mistakes - it would've been to win the game of all games, and all the many games I lost over the years, and all the failures, would've been erased by this ultimate achievement, this ultimate win - and that being left unachieved is more terrifying to me than anything else, because everything was riding on it. Maybe feeling this way isn't that common, but I doubt it, because most feelings are common!

 

[MementoMori81]

This is the most useful and interesting thread I have come across during my whole time using SS, other than the obvious method threads which are practically useful.

It's now late and the Xanax is kicking in, but one thing I think you maybe overlooked is the role of the ego (more in the modern negative sense), the sense of unachieved ambition, or the 'will to power' - if you had grandiose ambitions, and a good dose of low self-esteem, which seem to go hand in hand, and you believed achieving these things would be your path to redemption, and they have been left unachieved, this can, and does for me, make the idea of CTB utterly terrifying! This ultimate achievement, in my mind, was going to erase ALL previous mistakes - it would've been to win the game of all games, and all the many games I lost over the years, and all the failures, would've been erased by this ultimate achievement, this ultimate win - and that being left unachieved is more terrifying to me than anything else, because everything was riding on it. Maybe feeling this way isn't that common, but I doubt it, because most feelings are common!

Brilliant when you mentioned the role of the ego. We invest our entire identity in what we think we know about ourselves, and about what we think 'is' ourselves, what others think about us - existence is all we've ever known and so we fear losing all of that because we've accumulated and invested our identity in memories, behaviours, external attachments and relationships, and a whole range of other things and have forgotten that the world is in constant , unobtainable flux and so too, therefore, are we. We've forgotten that nothing can be held onto. It's almost as though we've created an illusion; our own identity.

I'm not sure if I'm the only one here who has these weird sensations, but sometimes I'll catch myself in a moment; usually in front of a mirror and I get this "whoaaa" moment of "that's me", followed by that really weird, almost detached feeling. It's like I can see myself, the body, but I have the strangest feeling that there something else in there watching it all happen. This is always inevitably followed by a deep pondering of what the point of all this is, why is it all happening? Of course, I err on the side of there being no point, we are an accident, a fluke and the point of life is just to be - until we are not.
I wish I could elucidate this a bit better but it's late. I try explaining it to people, but I can never quite put my own finger on it, so how do I get them to relate?

Bloody hell these are not the topics I should read or converse about at night because I just won't sleep now. I'll be thinking about it all night.

 

[Pain In The Ass]

Brilliant when you mentioned the role of the ego. We invest our entire identity in what we think we know about ourselves, and about what we think 'is' ourselves, what others think about us - existence is all we've ever known and so we fear losing all of that because we've accumulated and invested our identity in memories, behaviours, external attachments and relationships, and a whole range of other things and have forgotten that the world is in constant , unobtainable flux and so too, therefore, are we. We've forgotten that nothing can be held onto. It's almost as though we've created an illusion; our own identity.

I'm not sure if I'm the only one here who has these weird sensations, but sometimes I'll catch myself in a moment; usually in front of a mirror and I get this "whoaaa" moment of "that's me", followed by that really weird, almost detached feeling. It's like I can see myself, the body, but I have the strangest feeling that there something else in there watching it all happen. This is always inevitably followed by a deep pondering of what the point of all this is, why is it all happening? Of course, I err on the side of there being no point, we are an accident, a fluke and the point of life is just to be - until we are not.
I wish I could elucidate this a bit better but it's late. I try explaining it to people, but I can never quite put my own finger on it, so how do I get them to relate?

Bloody hell these are not the topics I should read or converse about at night because I just won't sleep now. I'll be thinking about it all night.

This illusion of our own identity is for me, the hardest part of CTB. It seems to me the teachings of Jesus are based around this idea - the realisation that you are not the centre of everything, any more than a stranger in the street is, and we should view that stranger in the same way we view ourselves, and no less. Mike Tyson talks like this recently, kind of Alan Watts style, about not being fooled by the ego, the ego wants you to feel proud of yourself, as if you are special, that you became heavy weight world champion, when you are just like a plant-shoot of the human species, or just a vessel carrying some task out for the species, not for yourself, however much your ego tricks you into thinking it's all for you, and about you. Jesus's main message is to ignore the ego and not allow it to dominate your desires. Don't get me wrong, I'm not 'religious', I just see value in these old philosophies. But I feel like without my ego I'm nothing, and without getting to carry out the ambitions I had, driven by my ego, I don't know why I'm here anymore, or why I bother to get up everyday, but leaving those egotistic desires unfulfilled, makes CTB feel so much more tragic. The Eastern philiosopohy that desire of the ego is the root of all pain, seems to be true here! This is why I find death statistics so useful - when you realise that most humans who ever lived died as children, and never achieved any grandiose ambition, and likely suffered a food deprived existence, in cold, uncomfortable housing, riddled with various illnesses, it makes me realize that my grandiose ambitions are unimportant, unless I believe I'm special, which would be incredibly narcissistic!

Low esteem and great ambition --> moral pain
Low esteem and low ambition --> suicidal ideation
High esteem and low ambition --> Ok
High esteem and great ambition --> state of equilibrium

I think IQ probably needs to be factored into these hypothese, because apparently IQ has a large effect in life goal expectation - a dog is happy to chase a ball for an hour or more a day, whereas someone with low self esteem and high IQ will be utterly miserable without something stimulating enough to satisfy the desire for the redemptive grandiose ambition. Someone with low self esteem but low IQ may find becoming a competent supermarket trolley/cart collector, or delivery van driver extremely satisfying.