Dear Tom

thank you for this. i have seen the cartoon before (recognized it as soon as it opened up) but had not realized it was Alffe's frog!!! anyway, watching that again made me smile. thank you for that.

regarding the suicide v.s. taking your own life dilemma, and the one is right and one is wrong, forgive me if i sound harsh, but it sounds to me no different than any of the other rationalizations one makes when suicidal. semantics are ready tools to twist logic into a shape that suits our purpose. in these cases, the whole 'purpose' is primarily that of dying sooner rather than later.

when i was planning i had figured out a way by which i was not going to hell... mind you, this isn't about religious credences or spiritual consequences, this is just about logical processes and rationalizations.

my logic, as to how i was not going to hell, worked similarly to your theory that choosing to take your life is not always suicide, and specifically, that it would not be suicide in your case. i would suggest to you that the only reason you "need" this theory, is that you "need" to make a distinction. because you don't believe suicide is ok, and yet you feel the lure to it. if you can find a way to construe suicide as not-suicide, then, you've made it ok. but have you really? because you wouldn't be going through these mental gymnastics at all, if you REALLY felt what you were doing were ok.

purpose, something everyone else on this thread has talked about. and indeed the point. is your purpose to die, now? that's it? what purpose is there in that, other than to end suffering? surely a different purpose can be found - a living purpose.

i can tell you, i have not found a purpose for myself yet. i am not in the dire circumstances you are, but i have at other times gone through extensive planning... to expire. i now just keep going, waiting for things to change. i see too that, even if they do not change, my life touches that of others in small ways. and i realize, that sometimes, those small ways might be big or might turn out much bigger than i'll ever know.

my purpose is to live and to try, even in small ways, consistent with my situation and abilities, to make the world better than it would be without me. better for others and for myself as well. it's more about the process, than the result. but i've seen that others who try often have good results, even if they are not the results they set out for.

i want to suggest to you that this is everyone's purpose... yours too.

you have a beautiful mind Tom, i can see that quite clearly. i don't believe its purpose is to die just yet.

~ waves ~