Deconstructing Nihilism (How to Be)
Nihilism arose from religion's collapse, negating specific constructs of common purpose under gods and dreams of immortality in heaven. Within this dichotomy, your only options are to either embrace beliefs which you know to be false or to live as an atom unbound from higher direction. Frederick Nietzsche was a philosopher who rejected religious constructs as well as Nihilism, particularly the passive state of hedonism which it facilitates. Nietzsche considered religion to be a distraction from Nihilism's principles like a drug providing artificial meaning—people cannot face Nihilism's detriment so they intoxicate themselves with religion. He believed that the correct alternative to facing Nihilism was to embrace it, that existence's futile nature is a challenge to be overcome; he maintained that its principles were indeed detrimental in their validity but that if you are strong enough to cope with them, preserving strength and ambition in life you can be considered a greater human being—the übermensch or superman. Nietzsche’s philosophy shares the same principles as Nihilism however promotes a different reaction, one based on strength and movement, not passive submission to the world's challenges. This way of thinking may encourage the strongest to live with rhythm however as it shares Nihilism's pessimistic understanding of the world, people are only an option away from being too weak to swallow their sadness—maintaining a depressive state. I believe that both religion and Nietzsche’s philosophy are insufficient at combatting Nihilism because both operate within its premise, maintaining sorrow in an understanding of its principles; the only difference between the two being that religion denies these sorrows and Nietzsche sees to endure them. Within either ignoring or embracing Nihilism's principles you admit to yourself that they are worth getting upset over in the first place. Both options respect the notion that not only is existence ultimately pointless, death approaches and man is insignificant, but that these understandings are worthy of lament. Nietzsche tells us to deal with these horrors but who’s to say there is horror within these truths to be dealt with in the first place. Nihilism is atomised as a particular negation of religious constructs, vulnerable in their lack of evidence, but outside of that specific context Nietzsche's beliefs have no meaning in the face of those who live with structure for a cause. Contemporary thought dodges between two options, religion with its falsehoods and Nihilism. What this understanding fails to do is realise that rhythm to life exists regardless of the existence of specific deities; man can always collectivise under values rather than being restricted to having purpose under the lies of archaic and primitive religious doctrines. The key to revealing Nihilism's abstract construct is to reject its premise by framing its principles in a light by which they represent no detriment to mankind. In applying this law to human life’s futility, insignificance and mortality, I will try to deconstruct Nihilism's principles; i’m not going to deny the validity of these principles, because I have no need to do so when I can just reveal them as void to an unclouded perspective.
Futility
Talk to a Nihilist and they will tell you that life has no meaning/purpose, that by use of the socratic method you can keep asking what the point of something is without ever reaching an end; this is false. People who ask what the point of living is fail to understand the nature of interest; even in asking what the purpose of life is, people do so with an interest of curiosity; meaning or purpose simply serves interest. The word purpose just arose from a need to specify the means towards objectives of wanting. When people ask about what the point of something is, what they mean is, how can it please whoever’s interested. When people ask what is the meaning/purpose of life, this question really asks what are the means towards life’s joy. Of course, what people find enjoyable is subjective to each individual; this is why the question [what is the purpose of life] is unanswerable, because it isn’t actually a question as it asks for an objective truth from interest in its subjective nature. Asking what the meaning of life is is about as good as asking what the color green tastes like—it isn’t a question; and instead of trying to correct this use of language, people cry because the color green has no taste. The reason Nihilism is so hard to crack is because it yearns for a solution to a problem which doesn’t exist, an answer without a question.
Humans are born with wanting, however within the very moment down to each second we cannot constantly be in states of enjoyment; as a coping method, humans possess the ability to have closure in perspective, knowing that at sometime in the future they will be in a state of enjoyment or that as a whole their suffering will not be in vain as it serves as the means towards activating the realisation of a greater good. To avoid the pain of the present, you remove yourself from it, investing your interest in perspective—something you through time have more control over. In this, there is a duality between living in the moment [being] and living in perspective [becoming]. The mental state of becoming is a psychological practice which has developed to be called meaning; this is religion's mindset; it is what keeps man going through long periods of labour devoid of comfort. I didn’t have a great time in high school, but what I did do towards the end was anticipate the yearbook, which compiles memories from the last 4 and a half years—producing a static encapsulation of moments reflecting the nature of the experience. Whatever those in charge of making the yearbook compiled would display the legacy of the era. With this comes the fixation of sagas; the state of past timelines becomes more important than being happy in the present— primarily because such people can’t be happy in the moment anyway; so through an inability to pursue enjoyment they removed interest from being, investing it into perspective. Meaning compensates for an absence of momentary happiness as does the yearbook which lies at the end of a painful school experience.
This practice is all well and good as a coping method for the average person who works five days in hope of the weekend, but what about people who have no outlet of relief to anticipate? 21st century man is circumstanced with an abundance of luxuries and constant stimulation through use of the internet. Constant gratification causes dopamine overloads in the brain, affectively depleting any flavour or sensation from life’s joys—causing depression. To be clinically depressed is to lack the ability to feel momentary happiness; to an entire generation burdened with this mentality, hope and meaning outside of the present come in high demand as they compensate for a constant absence of happiness. In the mind of the depressed, in value—duty towards something replaces personal joy. Instead of asking themselves—what is the next step towards my satisfaction?, they ask, what is the purpose?—to which due to their depression, the answer is never happiness, meaning the question repeats itself without end by law of the socratic method. These are people who need to be told what they want; they cannot navigate with the inherent interest of self gratification, because there exists nothing able to gratify their anhedonic minds—instead they focus their interests on purpose; of course the nature of purpose is to serve as the means towards happiness; unbeknownst to them, the Nihilist's version of purpose serves not a doorway to happiness but purpose itself, directing man into what is more of a loop in pursuit rather than a never ending progression of questions, since true questions of purpose eventually lead towards some access of gratification.
Nihilism's principles aren’t inherently detrimental to man's nature; through depression's lack of sensation and man's instinct to chase purpose, Nihilism's principles are simply what people gravitate towards centring melancholy on as evidence for their suffering. Mix a generation of depressed millennials with a lack of religious direction and you will get modern culture's climate through a combination of circumstances producing a docile and uninspired form of humanity. What Nihilists need to realise is that their depression does not come from life’s lack of purpose, but from their own lack of purpose as it serves happiness. Happiness—this interest proceeds what people call meaning; harnessing it over the latter is a return to being. Subconsciously, the depressed yearn not for meaning but for joy—which creates meaning in its service; and to those who maintain the conclusion that existence's nature is devoid of gratification, the common joys of mankind do exist and they are found in; strength; the security of self control; lust for beauty; and the movement of wonder through the unknown. A principle dreaded by Nihilists is the notion that humans are insignificant within the vast endlessness of the universe; but if there were a set limit of space in the universe there would also be a finite limit of existence for man to pursue. Within hypothetically reaching this definite point of fulfilment which Nihilists so desperately crave, man's place would truly be rendered pointless without anything else to discover; however fortunately as Nihilists will regrettably tell you, the universe is infinite—meaning there is no cap to what exists to be discovered; there can never be a point of pointlessness in human pursuit through the infinite. The universe has no end goal, but man does—that purpose is the joy found in the satisfaction of wonder. Nihilists ask: why work? To have children. Why have children? To further humanity. Why do that? To reach the stars. Why reach the stars? To dominate the elements and explore the unknown. Why? Because we goddamn feel like it, that's why.
Insignificance
Even with a sense of direction, man is prone to the futility of applying energy into creation only for these monuments to be lost in time; this is the idea that mankind and all we create are insignificant within the vast and infinite universe—so by this logic there is no reason to do anything constructive because not only will it fade away like tears in rain, but it makes no impact on the grand scheme of things. The key phase here is *grand scheme; the problem with this language is that the only way something can be insignificant and small is for it to be so relative to something which is significant and big; but if the universe is infinite, then scale and significance are obsolete measurements because there is no set end for such things to be measured by. If the universe is infinite and never ending than it cannot be measured up to anything. How can man be small in measurement to the scale of the entire universe if the entire universe has no entirety?; anything greater than us is just what we are to it to something else; why would scale matter in an infinite universe? If power's hierarchy is infinite, then being a god to man is only as good as being relatively powerful in relation to an ant farm or for that matter a nation or planet. What's the difference between being all powerful and just existing? How can you ever be entirely powerful in a universe which has no entirety or end? Any supreme being is reduced to the same level of what we are to it compared to infinity.
By this same logic, man's insignificance within time is also an abstraction; and I've found that the best way to illustrate this is by using Minecraft.
The larger red block represents the lifespan and significance of something else in existence; however if we zoom out, the white line representing time remains the same in length but the red block is now just as big as the blue block in comparison to the infinite. If I was in one of the old maps with a limited scale, the red block would seem more significant than the blue block because there is a cap to the world's size from which the two blocks can be measured. However in the real world as well as in this infinite Minecraft map, the larger block's size and importance are relative to infinity's scale; every block's size is reduced to the same equal significance in respect to the infinite. Moving across the white line represents time, with each block representing a decade; now the blue block is long gone, however hundreds of years later we find another blue block.
The one from earlier was lost in time like tears in rain, but it still exists in the inventory as a static concept outside of time's decay. Before that blue block, millions of years ago there was another, and there will be more along the line; but right now, relative to me as a consciousness it exists within my lifespan; I could have moved 10 or 10,000 blocks and it wouldn’t have made any difference relative to the infinite blocks within Minecraft. When talking about how humans are insignificant relative to the grand scheme of things people are restricted to using terms like grand scheme so they have something to measure human significance by, but in reality there is no grand scheme, no end within existence's infinite timeline. You cannot be insignificant without having something to be so relative to; any notion to the contrary is an abstract understanding and a manipulation of man's limited and susceptible intuition. I think this fixation on needing to be absolute within the universe comes from man's need to compensate for absent happiness, and I've already talked about that so I’m going to move on to the last principle of Nihilism I’d like to try and deconstruct, one which is arguably the most detrimental.
Death
(Unlocking true being)
Beyond any other of Nihilism's principles, humans fear death; even in religion's decline, without promise of an afterlife, spiritually minded people latch desperately onto ideas of reincarnation in hope of escaping eternal oblivion. The concept of reincarnation is prefaced by the notion that humans have souls—individual essences which exist outside of the physical realm. In reincarnation, when a person dies their soul is reborn in the arrival of a new life, one which lacks any recollection to its soul's previous physical host's memories. This concept offers salvation from death in the idea that individuals live forever only in different forms; the idea that people fall asleep without waking up to be born again with different genetics in different areas of the world. The problem with reincarnation is that it's pretty much identical to the mainstream view of what death is. How is dying and being reborn in the future any different from just dying and there being a baby with a similar brain pattern and set of preferences to you born in the future? The only thing which really differentiates death from reincarnation is the idea of the soul, connecting people from one life to another. Humans desperately want to live forever as individuals within their own bodies, fearing death beyond all else—however we die every time we fall asleep. In the morning the only thing to link us to the day before is our memories. If Jack wakes up in another country with a different appearance, different preferences, a different brain pattern and a new name, wouldn’t they just be another person? What's the difference between that and Jack dying in his sleep before someone else on the other side of the planet wakes up, as do humans every day. At the same time, if someone in another area of the world wakes up after being implanted with Jack's memories, preferences and brain pattern, is that not Jack resurrected? Which change do we lament more, the fact that Jack is discontinuous from his specific construct prior to falling asleep, or that despite being continuous from night to dawn his nature and memories have changed? What, if anything, defines Jack as an essential entity and by extension, what dies? Buddhists use imagery of flowers to represent impermanence because flowers die. Someone who believes in reincarnation could point out that when a flower dies it goes back to the soil to be recycled forming new flowers; however no individual flower is reborn with the exact same particles within the exact same formation; however considering that all particles are identical, would it really make any difference were this the case? Supposing that individual humans have souls, can Jack really maintain his existence and carry on through reincarnation after his brain has been reprogrammed and incepted with alternate memories? I believe that it is illogical for humans to fear death because there isn’t anything there to die in the first place. Death does not exist because individuals do not exist; people have no essence, no soul which can remain whole as human beings consist of various attributes. The only things which are whole and essential are the attributes which people are host to. Humans are accidental aspects of broader traits within the human collective; you do not have a soul, you are a part of a soul which comprises of many other individuals who share your preferences and nature. What is there to fear in death if it represents the same thing as falling asleep and waking up in the morning with a different name in a different place, maintaining attributes of psychological preference and nature. These attributes do not belong to individual people and their mortalities; they are not confined to being the essence of one person; they exist solely in themselves, spanning across the human population as trends or spirits. Inevitably within mankind’s future there are yet to be individuals born with the same brains as the likes of Napoleon or Mozart because their souls exist beyond their specific manifestations outside of time as static concepts. Napoleon's essence will come around again as it has before, just not connected by an individual soul through his spirit's manifestations. All songs written will be forgotten but their melodies will be invented for the future because they exist as concepts outside of time; all things of value we hold currently have just been reinvented; pulled from existence for our current circumstance as expendable tools which can be rekindled millions of years in the future; and unless every flea and every maggot also has an individual soul, this understanding of the world should be default.
The construct of the high school saga I touched on earlier is something which cerebral minded people tend to have a reverent affinity for. In media it manifests with a heavy sense of melancholy, especially in Japanese anime.
Entire works of film and literature—written revolving around the high school saga, featuring themes of romance and regret. Even in portraying passive kinship and euphoria, for some subtlety these stories are isolated within a depressively tiring haze of pale sun bleached colors; those within its delirium are compressed by an irking melancholy.
It's difficult to pinpoint why this is, but I believe that this swelling grief comes from the subconscious understanding that as does the high school year cycle, these stories and their timelines end. One of modern man's most Nihilistic pieces of media is Neon Genesis Evangelion. The end of Evangelion finishes with the world ending, but not before a music montage plays in which each character is calmly pacified by smiling apparitions of dead loved ones while Komm Susser Tod [come sweeter death] plays in the background. The joyous tone of the song paired with the acquiescent submission of those taken into death with tears of joy emphasises the mortality of the joy this scene displays just before the saga's termination. The problem here is that Evangelion's story chooses to pair the deaths of its characters with an event marking the end of the world; however in reality, after individual egos die, existence continues as does the essence of those passed. With hubris, such media laments mortality and the final, representing the death of beings with self important reverence and heavy emotion unworthy of an individual's passing—as if their's marks the end of all things. History never ends; the universe is a timeline without a beginning or a close. All who pass are part of a static context and have children who move through existence.
(Depiction of Caspar Friedrich's Wanderer rejecting melancholy and embracing being—screaming into the eternal.)
The high school experience along with its depictions in media exist outside of reality's flow as set timelines with beginnings and ends. Going through high school is like being encapsulated within a miniature lifespan; everything beyond is void, making its end seem to mark death. As an individual ego—at first glance, catharsis from this suffocating melancholy is the understanding that four years isn’t something to get emotionally worked up over by the end of. With this relief in knowing that instead of living four years you as an individual have at most around 85 within your total lifespan, you can then go without direction in fear of your coming death. Within this mindset, man is still in a state of becoming, one which waits for death within a personal timeline with a set beginning and end—much like the mortality of the high school experience. However, if you acknowledge that you have no soul or essence, that you instead comprise of various attributes, values, spirits or forms of being outside of time, and if you can serve as an agent of a spirit representing the human joys of health and wonder—then not only does your lifespan become obsolete, but so does time as a whole; because unlike individuals and their lifespans, the movement of spirits and values exist within a timeframe lacking a beginning or an end as they do not become but are; and as such, in becoming an aspect of a broader spirit, so too can people transcend mortal becoming—entering a state of being. In this, you realise it’s not just that four years of school isn’t enough time to get dramatic over, it's that no amount of time is worth getting emotional over. There is no past or future and no saga, no set of arcs to eternity's timeline and no good or bad ending to the light novel of existence, only a static state of clashing forces which move through the infinite. Nothing is ever over; you are in this, this struggle or whatever it may be to you. In reminiscing bygone high school years, these sagas and timelines are the imprints of being; what people need to do is manifest the boots which create these imprints. In order to truly be, people should not embrace the mortal imprints of spirits and trends within timelines, because within eternity there is no timeline. People need to embrace the static source energy, the essence which leaves these imprints behind.
False Ascension
When digging for relief from the implication of death, people tend to enter from internal philosophical violence into this false catharsis whereby "life's precious nature" is glorified with teary eyes; you only live once so make it count; life is so beautiful so appreciate the moment. In their desperate grasp for a conclusion, their delirious minds allow them one, an excuse of a conclusion granted for the sake of relief. Through the stress of thinking they lose their minds, finding themselves blissfully revelling in a deranged manner about how beautiful life is but also how human life is short so you need to make the most of it. What people do here is deny that their mortality bothers them; with gritted teeth they tell themselves that they can go on as long as they manage to strictly stop and smell the roses in everything they do, carving out a little story to look back on before the carefully constructed movie of their life ends; all those happy memories flashing before wizened and teary eyes. The problem with this conclusion is that even if it pacifies some in a weird half aware sort of way, for other people, appreciating the moment will not suffice as a cope for death. This conclusion will not help people, actual people who live lives, people who haven't been through the false ascension of an existential crisis. If it worked we wouldn't still be having problems with Nihilism amidst occasional enlightened transcendence popping up in society; culture seems to exist with both Nihilism and this generic solution to it within the same social awareness; no real solution can exist amidst its antithesis. The conclusion fiercely dictates that people appreciate the moment, but if those struggling with death had an ability to appreciate the moment they wouldn't be putting their interest into transcending death in the first place. Perspective and the future do matter; people cannot simply just live in the moment while trying to pretend to not care about the progression of their time limits. What people are looking for is something beyond the moment, beyond petty rose smelling; something which transcends mortality and their short lives along with all the worthless moments people can live in. What this suggestion to adamantly live in the moment and reject perspective fails to understand is that the past, future and all else in conceivable existence are the moment of those who are able to deconstruct Nihilism's premise; perspective is their state of being. Being in the moment regardless of perspective is actually a state of becoming because time moves through you; and in the moment you wait for death; however to live in perspective as an aspect of a value is to be outside of time. Living in the moment in the movie of your life isn't enough; the only way people are going to find relief is through transcending being just an individual with a set mortal runtime; transcend being part of a movie with a beginning and an end; exist beyond the mortality of the ego as an aspect of a force—something which exists outside of time within the universe. There is no moment, future or past, just being and its beholder's potential. Having a film timeline or a retrospective tale of friendship and warm emotions within your school years is void in the interest of the value of those emotions. Living a good life and dying isn’t enough; making it count because you only live once isn't enough; crying tears of joy because life is so precious and you need to be thankful for every day of a declining timeline isn't enough; the only proper way to be is to be more than mortal, something which exists outside of your body's lifespan. In this, you are nowhere within the declining timeline called your life, instead you are an aspect of something essential, stood eternally within existence—something which in lacking beginning or end, does not become but simply exists outside of time as do the concepts and values of which individuals exist as aspects of. This mentality allows the mind to shatter and step outside of the mortal high school experience, outside of Nihilism's paradigm, to break through the borders of a predetermined mortal timeline and truly be within a state of doing activated by the interests of broader spirits. It feels like something you didn’t know was there being removed; with this perspective in mind, preparation for the future serves this value and not preparation itself. What humans need to do is hold forth not their mortal individual ego's and the limited lifespan the construct of the human individual is confined within, but the ego as it serves the correct trends and spirits to which best fit man's healthiest preferences—these spirits being trends which best fortify the joys of life. So the next time someone asks what the purpose of life is you can tell them: I cannot die for I am not alive; what i am of lives; here before you is a craving for movement; through maintenance of the lust of which I am a part of I will be as much around to experience it's continuation 100 years from now as I am currently, only with different specific invaluable memories along with a different physical form, place and time. With this understanding, man's lust for movement is free, truly free to go forth and scream into the eternal, with eyes of blood ecstasy.
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