I recently heard someone say: “My life is like a B movie. I’m curious how it turns out, but I wouldn’t want to see it again”
Duty (to my wife and job), and the love of my dog. That’s pretty much it.
My dog. If I offed myself, who would take care of him? I know it’s pathetic, but I’m still alive, so hey…
Also, I wouldn’t want somebody else to have to clean up the mess.
My wife, of course. The knowledge that as bad as things are, they used to be a fuck of a lot worse. I’m always going to be a bit down, and that fact doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m just not a happy person. Not a content person, anyway.
What really keeps me going is the idea of learning. I fell in love with reading and learning in the army, and I’ve never really stopped. Top myself? Now? Impossible. I haven’t even started on French, Turkish, or Modern Greek, and while I have a very basic knowledge of calculus, I still suck at it. Oh no, I’m simply too busy with this shit to kill myself. I wouldn’t feel right blowing my brains out until at least getting through advanced calc, and probably not even then, which means that I’m going to die of old age before committing suicide.
Another thing is that I’m about to undergo some change with my job and schooling. Now change–even good change–can be incredibly stress-inducing, but I’m used to change. This time, the results might be pretty interesting. Not quite as interesting as the changes I went through after joining the army and getting married, but that’s probably a good thing. I will most likely be in Korea for a year by 2010, trying to get a second masters. And best of all, best of all, I will be done with this stupid, petty, what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-with-my-life-here job, and that prospect would keep Sylvia Plath going!
Oddly I don’t even feel that guilty about the idea of suicide. Even the best people can do massively selfish things to the ones they love, and I’m pretty far from the best. In any case, is suicide any more traumatic and sorrow-inducing than being sick with a terminal illness that kills you slowly? One that’s terrible to watch and expensive to treat? As awful as it sounds to say it, I don’t think I would feel a bit guilty in shooting myself as long as I settled my affairs and debts, took proper preparations in the method, and did it outside the apartment. That’s why I’m so glad to have all these reasons to stick around.
Sometimes my curiosity about the world keeps me going.
But most of the time I just try to distract myself from the black void of absolute horror at the center of reality.
My critters.
When my son was killed, it was the end of my world as I knew it. I had moved back to Alberta for him.
So in order to get up every day and out of the house, I got goats, then chickens and turkeys to go with my dogs and cats. This summer I added pigs to the mix. Every day my critters make me laugh out loud at least once.
Life ain’t grand yet, but it’s bearable.
I only manage to live each day because there is a nonzero chance that I will have sex.
This is a very good question.
Some days I have to agree that the only thing that keeps me going is that my heart just plain out refuses to stop beating, dammit.
On a ‘good’ day, my friends and my pets carry me through. On a bad day, when the dogs are forgetting that they are housebroken and the cats are slamming cabinet doors, they are part of the problem that makes me wish my heart would just … stop.
My writing USUALLY helps carry me through, it is an escape. But then, there are days it just doesn’t come to me.
There you have it.
I really had to think about this.
Probably the only thing that keeps me going is knowing that I am right.
Some days, inertia. Others, optimistic and/or intellectual curiousity. Also, I have a vacation coming up.
My artwork. I tried to give it up for years and I was miserable. It’s the only thing I truly enjoy doing, and the only thing I’m reasonably good at.
Also: morbid curiosity. I think the human race is in for some interesting times in the next several decades.
My cats and music.
Without those two commodities, I don’t know where I’d be.
Curiosity.
I was going to say caffeine and misanthropy.
At one time I severely depressed, with one of the reasons being that I didn’t understand at the time just how much I must be engaged emotionally by my work (plus a whole host of other subsequent realizations and slow-but-sure maturing which would fill a novel). My job as a tutor allows me to work with kids of all ages, and I love it. My hope is that at least one of them gets enough out of the interaction (and not just in strict schoolwork/knowledge terms) that the entire course of their life is changed for the better. I guess I think back to my school years when I constantly wished that just one teacher would conclusively demonstrate that they gave an unconditional damn about me (tho to be honest perhaps I wouldn’t have accepted that at the time). But like I said, it’s not just work but involves a whole bunch of other stuff-primarily I’ve managed to find a level of equanimity which my younger self could never have dreamed of.
On a few occasions, only my daughter.
I got better.
Because I prefer it to the alternative.
What I’m getting from this is that the majority aren’t terribly enthused about life in general. While my default mode is gloom, I’d always assumed that the rest of you had a rather more positive attitude. Interesting.
Stubbornness, and the fact that it would completely tear my parents apart if something were to happen to me. Some bleak days, those.
On normal days, hope keeps me going, and an insatiable curiousity to see what’s around the next corner. There’s so much to learn! 
Such a good question. I want positive things to happen in my life. Friends, family, music, good times, hopefully one day a SO. What keeps me going is knowing I’m the only one who is going to make it happen in my life.
Also the monthly paycheck, and beer.