The problem with Nihilism and the meaninglessness of it all.

In the past 5 years, it seems as if there is a new surge of Nihilism. People who keep on flocking to this idea that nothing matters. People share nihilistic memes “ironically” with no hint of irony whatsoever. The human mind is fairly easy to trick, and before you know it, it blurs the line between a joke and what you’ve begun to accept as your reality. People who start quoting the size of galaxies to demonstrate that our lives are tiny and meaningless are quite insufferable. Because while informative, this information is ultimately meaningless. To say our lives are meaning-less because one day we all will be reduced to atoms is reductive. 

It is like saying, “Everything is going to end anyway, so why does it matter”. 

That is profoundly stupid. 

By the time you are in your 20s, you began understanding some facets of adult life and, it doesn’t seem as charming as you once thought. You graduated from college or enrolled in post-grad and yet you don’t know what you want from life. The future seems uncertain, your love life probably sucks but, what is scariest is that you don’t seem to see meaning in anything you do, anything you believe in, anything you want. Moreover, the picture you had in your head begins to change, life isn’t fair, the world is a horrible place where bad things happen to good people. It’s the realization that the world is a fucked up place and trying to make it better is an uphill battle that pushes one to despair. Nihilism then seems like a tempting option. Because it’s liberating.

It’s an easy way out, a way to shed responsibility, an excuse to not read up on anything because nothing matters. It’s an excuse to be apathetic because you’re afraid to care about things. Or more accurately, because you don’t want to. 

It’s easy to say nothing matters when nothing affects you. Nihilism is a privilege.

The selective nihilist

First off, if your nihilism is something that you got from memes and Facebook posts, you’re what Holden Caufield calls a phony. You are not a nihilist, you just want to seem like one. Memes shouldn’t be anyone’s source for anything except lolz. Memes are not a good source of political opinions, philosophy, general knowledge, or “Facts”. If you really want to know things, you gotta seek knowledge. You don’t become an expert in nihilistic philosophy by posting nihilistic memes on your status. If someone truly doesn’t care, they don’t go around announcing that they don’t care.

What’s even worse is when you become nihilistic when faced with an uncomfortable situation but go on caring about other things as long as it’s convenient. You can’t go on simultaneously thinking that “Nothing matters” and “This matters”. That’s some premium quality cognitive dissonance. If things “don’t matter” only when they are uncomfortable for you, you’re not a nihilist. You’re a coward pretending to be a nihilist. 

Nihilism is a belief in nothing. Which while sounds cool as a teenager when you’re pointlessly trying to copy your favorite aloof fictional character, becomes rather stupid once you start behaving like said fictional character in your 20s. I blame pop culture for romanticizing aloof characters who just don’t care. Also, the stereotype that such aloof characters are usually male, who should never say out loud that they care about anything, is idiotic. Pop culture and society have conspired to raise a generation of apathetic male. Not caring is stupid and to grow up believing it’s cool is a tragedy.

Why is it so important to be edgy, aloof, and cool than to be just kind and thoughtful?

We all have something we care about unless you’re a sociopath, I guess. And caring is an act of believing because you care for something when you believe it has some value. Whether it’s the sentimental value or physical or material value, we care about things because we value them. Whether it’s a human life, an animal, a just cause, the environment, anything. You care about it because you value it, and you value notions like justice, truth, and morality. Now justice, truth, and morality are complicated topics with convoluted philosophical definitions, but that’s not an excuse for being apathetic. And I don’t think most of us are apathetic I just feel most of us are scared, because quite frankly the world has gone to shit in recent years, but then again, it always has been a shit place. There were plagues, wars, genocides, and all kinds of horrible things before we were even born. However, earlier people were aware of atrocities that were happening in their immediate vicinity, but now thanks to modern technology, we get to witness the suffering of the entire planet. And it is terrifying. It’s overwhelming and breaks your heart over and over again. This is where the modern nihilist comes in, the world is terrifying, so just say that none of it matters. Just stick your head in the sand and find comfort in the darkness of not knowing or caring.

What you have to realize is that no one wants you to save the world. It’s not a one-man job. But you can do a little, you can care a little, and by just caring a little you push the human race one step forward. You can’t save everything, but I bet you can save something, and that’s enough. 

Caring is an act of civilization, at least that’s what anthropologist Margaret Mead thinks.

Mead said that the first sign of civilization in ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink, or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety, and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts. We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized.

The Uncaring Universe and the meaninglessness of it all. 

Whenever someone talks about nihilism, they play the broken record of “You’re just a speck of dust in the universe, The universe doesn’t care about you.”

And they say it like it’s a bad thing!?.

The universe not caring about us is a beautiful thing, because frankly, can you imagine the kind of pressure that would be on you if the universe cared about your choices.

Right now, you might disappoint your parents or your loved one by your choices but, if the universe cared you would be disappointing the universe. The mere thought of disappointing your parents turns you into a concentrated ball of anxiety, you really think you can handle the pressure of disappointing the universe? The universe doesn’t care because if it did, we would get literally no work done, but importantly because it’s not sentient. A mountain doesn’t give a shit about you either, your clothes don’t care about you and, a river doesn’t care if you live or die. Caring is the function of a sentient being and, to expect it from the universe doesn’t make sense.

The meaningfulness of human life shouldn’t be measured by whether they somehow altered the universe or not. That’s a wrong scale of expectations, and quite conceited. Things you do in this life have meaning, the people you love and the people you hurt, the art you make, the life you save, everything has meaning. Humans both as a society and as individuals give meanings to things. This means if you think that the Pokemon cards you collected as a kid have meaning then they have meaning, universe be damned. As long as you keep giving meaning to things, there will be a meaning to them and to the things you do. Man can rarely find meaning in the present or the future. So if you want to look for meaning, look to your past, think about how somehow seemingly small random meaningless things got you where you are. In retrospect, the meaningfulness of seemingly meaningless life becomes clear. Now you can say it’s just us assigning meaning to our past experiences, but then if we won’t do it, who else is there? 

Life has meaning when you give it meaning and, why should you give meaning to it? 

Because everything is going to end anyway, so this is all the time you have. 

Spend it meaningfully.