So, what is the difference between me and the various nihilists on this board? Realunoriginal, joker et al I’m talking to you. I accept that life is without any meaning disregarding what you give it. Yet I still find life a beautiful thing, many people wondererful, many parts of life incredible. Maybe I’m still desperately trying to give christian morality a different foundation to the intended one. But this seems incorrect. Why am I not filled with hatred for humanity as a whole, pessisism for the future of mankind etc? I care about my fellow man, not due to any principle, but due to my nature.
Why can I not, when I agree on so many intellectual principles, agree with your nihilistic conclusions? I’m no soft-hearted humanist. People are often idiots.
I often compare my views on life with those expressed in the writings of Kurt Vonnegut, and nod approvingly. Yet he seemed to embrace humanism.
Can anyone shed any light on life for me? I admit that I don’t understand life very well at all.
Let me first say that I both do and do not belong to “nihil-ism”, because I reject absolute identities (-ists and -isms). Although I would call myself a ‘nihilist’ and say that I believe in ‘nihilism’ (i.e. nihilistic beliefs), I am doing so for a specific purpose–namely to describe myself accurately to a group of philosophers. My intention is to relate to this philosophical ideology pragmatically, not epistemologically. If I wanted to get down to the nitty-gritty, then I would say that both no words and all words describe my being. Chances are that if I identify myself as a ‘nihilist’ to the average person, they’re not going to know what I’m talking about. The reason that I do so here, on ILP, is because it is a quick way to relate my core beliefs (metaphysics) and the mental processes behind my philosophies.
So what is my point?
My point is this: there is no one way that a person should or should not react to nihilism–to staring at the void of life and meaning. What should a person do when the world loses all meaning and despair settles in a person’s very being? I would be a fool to think I have the answer to this, but what I do know is going to depend on my own personal experiences, on what I have done and how I have reacted to situations throughout my life.
The result of my nihilism is this: I view all of life and meaning as arbitrary. Any meaning I can possibly give this world, create or destroy, in a sense is going to be just an opinion. How can I possibly validate any meaning in the way I wish I could–objectively, meaningfully, etc.? I don’t know…
I imagine I would enjoy a blissful life, one of peace, without existential anxiety, but I view my plight as a gift. I view my pleasures as a curse.
I think life can be beautiful and incredible too but at the same time I try not to sugar coat existence in some fantastical description like many people do with spirituality, religion or morality.
I have been to the bottom and top of life where I have come to know that life does not reward meekness or kindness but instead only rewards those who are ruthless.
I think there exists a few extraordinary people but for the most part almost every person that I have observed I find to be inherently selfish, vain and inconsiderate of others which has made me even more ruthless myself in contrast over the years.
History also shows this.
It is a kill or be killed world that we live in. Either you conquer or you move out of the way only to be conquered yourself by others who seek to exploit you.
