A major breakthrough has occurred for me where it finally clicked just how much better it is to be ingenuous and artless rather than attempting to put out an image or preserve some identity!
It happened as I was on a work trip, and came home, and I found that I wasn’t enjoying myself so much. I felt like I had to be ‘on guard’ all the time, and conversations were not really fun. And I didn’t feel fully at ease somehow… this has often happened in the past when I had been away from home for a while, after a few days it goes back to how it was before I left.
But then I saw what I was doing is, basically trying to hide from the people around me! So I felt like I had to go around on tiptoes to be careful to reveal only certain parts of myself. I made a decision then and there that I don’t want to live my life that way, hiding away like this. I will just be as I am, and whatever comes of it, so be it! Things were remarkably better and way more fun after this. It wasn’t even anything specific I was trying to hide (as in a secret), it was just the general approach to it. I felt comfortable, at ease, and the feeling of unease had gone away fully
I see now how this is a key aspect of being naive! Just not having to put up any pretense. It really is a lot better!! And this enabled me to have more fun with posting here too. I just post what seemed like a good idea to post, without trying to fit it into an overarching strategy or what-not. More like a, well this might work, let’s see what happens if I post this… after all if anything less than ‘ideal’ happens I can just correct it afterwards, adjust things for next time!
So in short I’m having fun with it all :))
Vineeto wrote me an email with some great advice and it reminded me of what Srinath wrote, that the final bit for him had to be something to come from his own experience: “I thought that I needed a reason to die. Not a fake or artificial reason. I needed something authentic that felt true to the core of my being. It would have to come from left-field.” [link]
Exactly that, not a "fake or artificial reason", but “something authentic”!
Maybe this is strange to say, but… I don’t know specifically what it is yet but I know I have one 
One that seems to come really close is a deep-down… really wanting to find out exactly what life is about. To be living that, the meaning of life, to actually get to the very heart of it and live that. I would say this stems from my generally curious nature, I always get really absorbed into things I am interested in, learn all I can about it, get deep down to it until I really understand it… this would be wonderful to do. I think when I write it like this it sounds like an intellectual or thought-out reason (like “it would be nice”), but it is deeper than that, a burning desire to know… if this isn’t the final reason, at least it is a way to get myself more aligned with the final goal :))