How to overcome Existential Nihilism
Nihilism can often trigger existential crisis, sometimes leading to anxiety and depression. While some people are positive in their approach to Nihilism, others simply cannot comprehend how not to be negative about it. I was stuck on the pessimistic side of it for a long time. But I crawled out of it and, below, I’ll share how I shifted my perspective.
The term Nihilism has been used with different connotations by many different authors from different periods. Of those, Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Camus are the two who most influenced the present text. Here, the term is synonym to the philosophical idea according to which nothing can be objectively known. It’s the perception that there’s no reliable basis to support any absolute truth nor objective morality (topic for a different article). In particular, Existential Nihilism is the belief that it’s impossible to find intrinsic value or meaning in life.
As some philosophers of the 19th and 20th century predicted, Existential Nihilism has been spreading in the western civilization, bringing along hopelessness and depression. The reason behind this phenomenon is our increasingly better understanding of the world — enabled by science and by the widespread access to information. Such comprehension comes with the consequential and progressive implosion of religious dogmas — “God is dead”, exclaimed Nietzsche — , from which we historically derived the meaning for life that we so viscerally long for. Thus, an increasing number of individuals gain awareness of the indifference of the Universe and the incomprehensibility of existence itself, often turning radically skeptic and extremely pessimistic.
I’ve been in this dark situation myself, and it wasn’t easy. In my mind, even trying to find a way out was pointless. And despite believing that all my problems had lost importance — for everything in one’s brief life, good or bad, becomes meaningless when contrasted with the eternity and grandiosity of the Universe — ; despite that belief, my problems didn’t feel less real. They did not vanish. Instead, Nihilism made me feel despair and suffer even more, which is ironic, to say the least.
That’s the paradox of Nihilism, I realized: knowing that nothing matters, including suffering itself, doesn’t exempt you from suffering all the same. In addition to that and as Camus pointed out in The Myth of Sisyphus, it’s also paradoxical to choose to stay alive while affirming the futility of life. That’s when I finally saw: being able to think rationally, doesn’t make you less of an emotional animal, and neglecting this reality (i.e., our non-rational half) is an intellectual mistake in itself.
This insight enabled me to open my mind in order to reconsider the possibility of a positive approach to Nihilism. I had already read about it before but, like I said, the so-called “Active Nihilism” was just as pointless as everything else. This redutional mindset doesn’t allow improvement, though. No one who holds a flawed idea considers it to be flawed.
So if you are in that situation, allow yourself to cease questioning the “point”, just for a moment, and let’s go through the basic reasoning behind Active Nihilism real quick. It goes like this: if there is no basis for objectivity, it means you don’t need to accept a meaning inflicted upon you by any kind of secular or non-secular authority. Therefore, it means you have the freedom to create your own meaning in life. But, because this freedom might be too much to take, an absurd, as Camus puts it, this is where many nihilists get stuck at. Where I was stuck at, for a long time.
The definition of meaning is the key point here. For most people, meaning must be necessarily objective, but this is only achievable through faith in the existence of an objective truth and of a true and eternal reality, that is, Platonism, which in Abrahamic religions is the equivalent of Heaven and the godly laws.
However, this definition of meaning is problematic, because wishing for an afterlife is a consequence of not accepting death as an irremediable event, which, from an anthropological perspective, is what gave birth to religion in the first place. As Nietzsche puts it in The Will to Power:
“The nihilistic question “for what?” is rooted in the old habit of supposing that the goal must be put up, given, demanded from outside — by some superhuman authority.”
So, why does meaning need to be objective? The answer is: it doesn’t! But only insofar as you can accept and embrace death — more clearly, the notion of it. It’s not to say that death is the end, but to live in peace with the fact that we can’t know it for sure, and to not be bothered by it. This is when freedom ceases to be a burden too heavy to bear and becomes truly liberating, allowing you to finally create your own purpose, for your own life.
To illustrate this point, follow me on this analogy:
When we have a dream (or a nightmare), most of the time we can’t tell it is an illusion until we finally wake up. Sometimes, however, we are able to realize that we are dreaming without waking up. That’s called a lucid dream. When it happens, you are able to manipulate your own dream. In other words, you no longer need to accept the illusion created and imposed on you by your subconscious but, instead, you become empowered to steer it somewhat consciously and, despite knowing that it is “meaningless” (given that you’ll eventually wake up), it doesn’t keep you from enjoying it anyway.
The next part might get a little confusing, so stay with me: following this analogy, let’s say a regular dream is like life before Nihilism. The process of becoming aware of the dream is like becoming aware of Nihilism. The short panic that happens when you have a lucid dream for the first time is like the pessimism caused by Nihilism initially. Finally, recentering yourself and gaining the control of your dream is like the transition from Passive to Active Nihilism. From pessimistic to optimistic.
This transition happens by truly accepting the reality of death, despite the resistance of the ego, so that you can live your life in the present moment, without being haunted by the idea of mortality and getting anxious over that. If you think about it, this process is very similar to lucid dreaming, or even daydreaming.
And lucid (or day) dreams are way better than the regular ones. Likewise, a lucid life, lived on your own terms, is way more gratifying than a life shaped by external guidelines. Accepting the absurdity of death and of the silence of the Universe in face of our craving for meaning is easier said than done. But once you go through this process, you will finally gain the autonomy required to create a fulfilling purpose for your own life, instead of allowing external agents to impose it on you. Instead of being reactive, you will be mindful and intentional, thus happier.
“A new pride my ego taught me, and this I teach men: no longer to bury one’s head in the sand of heavenly things, but to bear it freely, an earthly head, which creates a meaning for the earth.” (The Will to Power, Friedrich Nietzsche).
