Because when it comes to Nihilism one can’t really deny that it is right. All those “no’s” are the truth of our existence and the problem is being able to cope with that or not. Camus says that suicide is the affirmation that life isn’t worth living, which is a decent argument. I don’t have an answer for why life is worth it because there is no meaning to anything I do in it. Most answers I see on the internet don’t seem to address that main problem and just dodge or dance around nihilism. Asserting that something is meaningful doesn’t make it so, it’s just pretending. What we deem to be meaningful is a lie that we tell ourselves enough until we believe it. You can’t make meaning because the very act itself is void of meaning, or to coin a popular phrase “you can’t get something from nothing”.
To me the idea of making meaning is like trying to build a sand castle in the desert. It would have been better if I never read any of this stuff and gone on blissfully ignorant of all of it. Before I never really questioned why I was doing things but at least I felt purpose and meaning to what I was doing. But to realize that there is no real true purpose or point to the things I do I am left in a void. Nothing matters anymore, and it just feels like I’m doing what I did before out of some habit. I can’t pretend anymore, there just isn’t any logic or reason to it. Pretending something matters or has meaning is just dodging Nihilism.
In what way? Is there some sense in which you’re comparing one state of affairs to the other, and evaluating them according to a standard that matters to you?
No, it’s dealing with the reality of our existence. Like the link and the quoted parts mention about philosophy not being some kind of band-aid for our self esteem and trying to fight against meaninglessness by attempting to impose meaning on the world.
Seconding the suggestion to get a kitten. Kitties have no concept of life’s meaning…they eat, shit, play, and sometimes kill small critters. Then they sleep without a conscience.
I really want to come back as a cat. Fucken moral-freeloaders.
I remember you talking about this a long time ago OP. So if life has no purpose or meaning then what? I mean I agree with that to a point, but so what must follow from this understanding? I assume you still get out of bed and eat and keep yourself alive right?
No, that’s exactly what gives things meaning. Meaning is a* human* concept *imposed by *humans. A world without humans or a human-equivalent species would have no meaning.
Go seek some pleasure; make a child smile, get laid, preferably two completely separate incidents. Seriously, life is good and its meaning is the pleasures it gives along the way. Those pleasures mean more because of the hardships inbetween.
