[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

When I was 21 some circumstances in my life caused me to contemplate suicide. When I say "contemplate" I don't mean I planned on doing it, but that I thought about it long and hard, considering all the possibilities and likelihoods from every angle I could think of. My conclusion then was that there were still possibilities I hadn't thought of - tomorrow I might find my dream job, my dream girl, or any number of other good things that might be waiting around the corner.

Now, almost fifty years later, I never got that job, never had that life, and I'm suffering from depression more and more each year. I still laugh every time I visit the VA hospital and the first thing they ask is "Have you had any thoughts of harming yourself?" I always answer "No", and it's true. I haven't. One day I started contemplating the whole thing over again, and finally came to realize the awful truth: I'm a coward. No matter how bad things get I won't give up, not because I believe something good might happen tomorrow - I'm far beyond that - but because after years of being a believer, and years of trying to prove my beliefs, I came to the conclusion that I don't have any answers and nobody else has convinced me that they do. I don't know what's on the other side, if anything, and I'm in no hurry to find out.

Plain, sober reasoning there, Steve. Cowardice, that you implied, has little to do with it, me thinks. You are more a stoic, or a Vulcan, than a coward.