Nihilism.txt
prompt: this week, recycle an old piece (or several) for this club into something new! patch lines together, ideas together, images together. Frankenstein it! if you haven't been in this club long, then use any other old writing of yours8 April 2025
There is this essay I've been meaning to write, I kind of wanted to understand more about why meaning exists and what does it say about us. I initially titled the essay "The idea of meaning". I had written and rewritten this essay a couple of times but I could never get it right. I think I got it right this time around, Enjoy.
I think I want to talk a bit about the philosophy of life so as to speak. Something I've noticed about myself is the I find it very hard to cling on to things. When it comes to art that I like, I enjoy it and move on. It's only recently that I've kind of developed this idea of slowing down and going back to the stuff you have already gone through. Thus for me the lens through which I look at life does not have a single shade. My philosophy is this mix and match of the stuff I've read or seen. This is what I think now.
At this point in time, I find the question of meaning to be silly. It's so subjective and honestly nothing makes sense. It's really hard to reduce stuff to a single principle or set of principles. That being said, n our culture there are a couple of ways I've seen this question being answered. One of the ways is this idea of honing your craft. I think it's by far the most popular. To find this spark in your life and give it your all. Base your life around it. It's a very happy and cool way to go on about your life. Then there is this idea of nobility. Dedicating your life for the betterment of the world around you. Then there is the nomadic way of life which is also cool I suppose.
To be fair none of them are bad ways to go on about life. If one finds comfort and this feeling of "I think this feels truly right to me", then that's fucking awesome. I'm all for it but when you really think about it, for me at least, the idea of meaning has some weird relation with the idea of eternity. In the back of my head there is always this idea of creating something larger than yourself. There is this idea of creating something that will outlive everything. What's the point of meaning if it doesn't last. Like imagine you go about your life and finally you find something you really like, something that makes you think "this is it, this is what I want to do". Now imagine another guy, he goes on about his life not really thinking much about these things and he never truly finds his spark so as to speak.
In the end both of them dies. Logically speaking does it even matter if you find your thing. It's hard for me to get behind the sentiment of "Death is what makes life meaningful" or "death is what makes life beautiful". To me ceasing to exist is nothing but horror. When you look beyond the everyday life, when you look deep into the universe, there exists nothing but nihilism. There is this book called "Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker. In the book he goes on to say about the idea of the "heroic individual". The idea is that we are so obsessed with finding our meaning and our true calling because it helps us give a narrative in which we are the hero. When we have this narrative and when we become the hero of our own stories, our actions have this weight to them.
This weight makes us think that our actions truly matter, it makes us think that our actions will leave a legacy that will outlive us. What he tries to say in the book or at least what I understood is that, this idea of a legacy acts as a barrier to protect us from the truth. The truth being, we don't matter, nothing truly matters. We are nothing but stardust on a spinning rock that goes around a fucking ball of fire. Nothing lasts in this universe. Nothings makes sense.
I don't know why, maybe it's the beautiful sunset I'm witnessing or maybe it's the music I'm listening to. This cosmic nihilism doesn't break my heart, on the other hand it bring me a strange sense of relief. I don't have to take everything so seriously. I can do things at my pace and just exist. No pressure. No identity that I need to fit into. No expectations, none that matters anyway. It's just me and me alone, like it always has been.