My Departure From Nihilism

The topic of Existential Nihilism (EN) is a fascinating one to say the least. I think the vast majority of people that read and comprehend the definiton believe it to be a dangerous mindset. Some people find it to be a complete waste of time, others feel sympathy for those who say they believe in it, others feel compassion for those so consumed by it that they are almost caught in a cycle of suffering of which they don't have the tools of which to escape with. I don't think even those who truly "know" that EN is true take any satisfaction in the fact that while they do know, most others cannot and never will.

Even if we accept that EN is a concrete truth, does this mean we should not try to live our lives to the best of our ability and not try to enjoy ourselves, to not help others and not experience the positives of life while trying to limit the negatives? THAT is the exact problem I have been dealing with for a number of years. If I believe that EN is 100% true (which I still maintain is a possibility) then what is the reason I do not just commit suicide and escape this ridiculously challenging existence? Why would I just go with the flow and continue to take part in anything when I know it all means nothing and has no value or purpose? How can one be motivated to do anything when nothing they do makes a difference in the bigger picture of the universe?

The answer I have come to realise is this: the reason I have not committed suicide and continue to battle on to such a degree that I no longer use EN as an excuse not to do anything is because I have somewhat resolved my inner conflict between whether Free Will does exist or whether it does NOT exist. The detail that explains that fully is for another thread, so I won't bore you with that information now. What I will say is this: despite my head, my heart and my soul telling me that Free Will is far more likely NOT to exist, I believe it is better to take the risk believing that Free Will DOES exist and try to do the best I can, and positively affect the lives of those around me and still try to accumulate knowledge/wisdom to the best of my ability compared with taking the risk of believing that Free Will does NOT exist, and either just doing the bare minimum in every aspect of my life to merely survive when I know that by doing so I and most of those around me are not happy with those conditions.

Essentially, as a human being, I would rather take a more accurately calculated risk than a less accurately calculated risk. That is why I will live my life in accordance with the idea that Free Will DOES exist and I can make choices that have very positive outcomes for myself and others around me.

If you are struggling with an existential crisis of any sort, please feel free to PM me and I will try my best to help you in anyway I can. It is very difficult to do if you are consumed by EN, but there is still hope if you are alive and would prefer to be happy rather than depressed.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Thank you for posting this as it reminds me that despite my plans always failing that I have a choice in what those plans are and that someday one will succeed and will make me happy.

Mods, don't block me for my run on sentence.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Thanks

“I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.”― Blaise Pascal

Music keeps life moving - do not sit still



Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Rage, rage against the dying light

a reply to: Dark Ghost

It is better to believe in free will. It predicts better career and job performance [Source], decreases cheating [Source], and leads to less aggressive behavior [Source]. It allows one to believe he is responsible for his own actions.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Nietzsche's big mistake is not only is it all meaningless, but it is also meaningless that it is meaningless. So if it's meaningless that it is meaningless, then why not just CHOOSE meaningful since it doesn't matter anyway.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Nihilism is just excuse, its a step in deep process of looking for love.

originally posted by: LookingForABetterLife
Thank you for posting this as it reminds me that despite my plans always failing that I have a choice in what those plans are and that someday one will succeed and will make me happy.

Mods, don't block me for my run on sentence.

You know, your kind of post makes me want to come back to ATS on a regular basis. Not just because I can tell you found the opening post to be helpful and that it struck a chord within you (which is itself highly significant to me), but also because my contributions over the last 2-3 weeks have been a lot more elaborate than at any time in the past 8 years that I can remember, and it seems that the hard work I have put in is paying off for myself and others as well.

To see a first reply in one of my threads that isn't the usual funny one-liner, or knee-jerk rebuttal, but actually somebody telling me that they can relate to what I have said and that it will be useful to their life is very heartwarming. So, thank YOU LookingForABetterLife, you are the one with all the power in your life and you CAN change things for the better. It might take time and the journey may be painful along the way, but you CAN do it!

Best of luck in your life experiences: happiness, fulfilment, peace and security all await: all you have to do is GO FOR IT!

a reply to: Dark Ghost

One of the hardest and most profound truth one can discover is that everything is connected. It is easy to become lonely and hopeless when you're used to live in your own head all the time, bound by false beliefs, traumas and mental blocks. In fact i think most of those that experience nihilism/solipsim have emotional underlying issues that are unresolved and beg to be released. I know that because i'm in the middle of such an existential crisis and discovered much about my past. I didnt even recognize that i was a nihilist until a fateful day when i understood that i had been dissociated the entire time, unable to feel normally because of old hurts that were never taken care of and left to fester deep in my subconscious, altering all my quality of life for the worst. The law of attraction is a double edged sword, it will attract what you believe to be true, regardless of its nature. A negative mindset is determined by your core beliefs, thoughts, behaviour and reactions, and the more you feed it the further it spreads and take roots and when that happens you start attracting the same quality of energy to you, which worsen your life conditions in all directions. I say this because i am in the process of observing this phenomenon happening to me and literally can relate to your op.

I came to the understanding that everything you do affects the bigger picture at a smaller degree. You really produce small ripples with each thought and action in this world of energy, each of them having an impact you are most of the time not aware of. Ultimately you own your destiny but have to make the necessary efforts to shape it the way you want, something i have had enormous difficulty to integrate in spite of my spiritual path. I'm really just at the point where i can only recognize this fact but not yet put it into actions. The thing is not to focus on the apparent insignificance of your life but on what you can do and what you are willing to do to make the "you" prior to your incarnation proud. One belief that might make it easier for you as well as me and others, would be to have faith in that you are not just a body but a bigger existence that is having an experience in a human body. If you decided to incarnate, it is no accident and you should consider there is a bigger purpose you chose "yourself" but forgot as is the way it works. The game would be to rediscover this purpose, which doesnt go against free will, on the contrary, but provides a direction, an anchor you can use to ground yourself and proceed to move forward.

I have the same problem right now, in that i dont see any value to small actions and mundanity. Not only does it have to do with well rooted false beliefs but also directly related to the state of humanity and the world. Focusing on all the negativity will further propagate it in all directions making life even more miserable, and there is an existential truth here. There is much negativity because so many are being negative and if you consider the power of manifestation of millions focused on negativity you can assume they will influence the world in a bad way, a vicious circle that is not only happening inside you or me but countless others and if that makes, on a personal level, your life miserable, than you can only conclude that it does the same with other and with the whole Earth, as within so without.

The most important thing i discovered however, is that there is more and more potential to make a difference using the right knowledge and wisdom. In a negative state of mind, i assume one has low vibrations and low energy levels but once you get out of this loop, your inner energy starts to rise in quality and quantity like an inner transmutation from lead to gold, especially if you do the right things to enhance your quality of life, like diet, meeting with nature, spirituality, ki cultivation, compassion (a true nemesis of the nihilist mindset imo). And when you reach a certain threshold, that you can look back and see how much improvement you made, you can understand that not only you do own your life and destiny but you can start making bigger changes if you decide so and even get to the point where you will influence the whole world. Just look at some gurus and enlightened people, they rule and they can affect the whole world if they choose to, because they got so much energy and charisma, they recognize the truth and thus flow with life, their presence is so palpable because they are positively conscious, they influence their environment even without moving a single finger. And that is possible for anyone. At the bottom you hardly feel like you can do anything but only because you have shaped your perspective that way, you built a small matrix, you simply dont see the whole picture anymore, but once you have managed a breakthrough, then you see that breathing is good and anything is possible.

I haven't studied nihilism, but I think I get the idea pretty well. It probably stems from relativism, regardless, it seems that when you are liberated from your preconceived notions about reality, you are free to do anything without having regrets. Obviously it doesn't work that way for most of those who accept the idea.

I think a lot differently about life since I had a brush with death nearly a couple years ago. I don't really worry too much anymore because I could already be dead. Most everything seems like BS to me now. I'm not saying I don't keep trying to do what is in my nature and what I believe in, I still have life goals, likes and dislikes, a sense of what is right and wrong, but not only do I not sweet the little things, the big issues don't really bother me now either. Even though I survive to live another day, screw it because I could be dead right now, the most liberating thing that could happen is being dead, esp. if it's lights out and game over.

Not sure that is a good attitude or not, but I find I can live more stress free by thinking about having died over a year ago. I have to conclude that there are many people who are glad I am still alive, perhaps the universe is happy about that too because I still live regardless of the fact I could be dead right now. Is the world a better place because I survived? Maybe, but if I were really dead right now, it wouldn't be an issue.

Edit: Posting errors because my one reply was very long. Please see my next two posts.

a reply to: _damon

There is so much truth and wisdom in what you have just shared with us, that I actually feel bad attempting to point out the small areas of concern that I, personally, have noticed. It would be a shame if ANYONE reading this thread goes on to see this reply of mine and concludes "OK, Dark Ghost is right, probably best to ignore most of what _damon has said because his views might not be 100% airtight as a whole." (Despite the fact that none of MY own views are 100% airtight either, but my views as the author of this thread, if they struck a strong chord with the reader will probably be favoured over a reply from a non-author of the thread.)

Perhaps readers besides myself and _damon feel a bit insulted by that, for me to assume they "need" me to say this on their behalf, as though they themselves cannot only take the useful from _damon's reply and still acknowledge the criticism from this reply and view them as plausible. Well, that is NOT my intention, but I have seen this happen in the past and I have personally felt this my way in the past as well. So better to clarify before than be accused after. I have faith that 90% of people reading this thread do not need this explained, but the 90% are not the ones with the most to gain by taking the thread seriously, it's the other 10% that are. Now that we have acknowledged that, let's get on with it.

My 3 criticism's for _damon's reply:

1) The "everything is connected" idea can be very useful in most circumstances, but it can also be extremely harmful in other situations as well. To acknowledge that any non-thought based action you take or ESPECIALLY any non-thought based action you take without first thinking reasonably about it beforehand can lead to very positive or very negative consequences for others is indisputable.

I am using the term "non-thought based action" because thinking/to think is technically considered a verb (or action) when in reality it should not be in the context of our discussion. (I can stand up, walk to the fridge and take a drink out, then head back to my chair and sit back down. The drink being on my desk in front of me did not, and cannot, get there by me thinking it will if I don't get up at all and grab it myself.)

Our thoughts/thinking can only negatively harm ourselves. Brainwashing or mind-controlling others is an action and has nothing to do with thinking itself. The only time we can negatively harm anything other than ourselves is through action. Some people think that "thought ultimately leads to action", which I VERY MUCH dispute because from my own experiences and from hearing the experiences of many others too, this is NOT true. As I said, and with the SOLE exception of somebody who is literally mentally insane (not through diagnoses alone but also through behaviour that can be best explained by their mindset, but not 100% confirmed because you cannot view somebody else's mindset directly), thought/thinking no matter how terrible or unreasonable CANNOT lead directly to ANY form of action that can harm others. It's not possible — or at least not provable to be possible at this stage.

The key point I am getting at with this first criticism is this: the "everything is connected" theory can be dangerous when you start to believe that "oh, I just thought about smashing my boss in the face and quitting work because of how he treats me...whoops better not explore why I feel that way in case I end up doing it and getting in serious trouble. Guess I'll just be quiet and let it continue. Better than smashing him in the face, going to jail and being removed from my family because of my actions which would be a far worse situation than just copping the current abuse and mistreatment for as long as I need to."

OR "I can't believe I just bought a TV. Over half the world's population cannot even eat or drink properly and here I am buying something I don't even need. Shame on me— wait, I better be careful where these thoughts are going, I don't want to end up putting my situation into context and being realistic. I am going to return the TV right now. Then I will go home, find out if any reputable charities will take all the money I have as soon as possible and assure me that it will go to those in need. Once I've confirmed this, I will do it. Those starving kids are more important than me alone and if I didn't do what I'm about to do, nothing will change. Therefore I want to demonstrate I am NOT a hypocrite and WILL do it now!"

I hope you get the point I am trying to make because it is a significant one.

2) The "power of manifestation" idea.

This relates back to your "everything is connected" argument from before. The difference here is that you are saying not only do your own thoughts/actions manifest into an overall negative mindset for yourself, but rather that having so many people across the planet sharing the same mindset as a result of their thoughts/actions, it is negatively affecting those that do not have a negative mindset. That would be true, but only if there was no realistic way for them to refrain from associating with negatively minded people as best they can. You might say "but didn't you argue just before that I was wrong, that the planet having an overall negative frequency can affect anyone living on Earth? Didn't you just prove my point, Dark Ghost?" No, I did not, and I will explain why.

People (who are either neutrally minded or positively minded) that refuse to avoid negatively minded people to a reasonable degree, are choosing (yes, making a free decision) to not improve their own lives, and are also consenting to having the quality of their lives deteriorate. There are obviously a small percentage of people in Western countries (I cannot reasonably estimate for the global population, but for people in the West which I am part of, I would estimate 10% maximum) who cannot avoid interacting with negatively minded people on a day to day basis, who are the exception and I feel compassion for them.

So the percentage of 10% is small, and the actual number of people in this position seems large enough to warrant concern, but what can people NOT in this position do to help these people that ARE? Aside from people that ARE coming out and saying "I am in this situation, please help me escape it!" There is no other realistic way because you cannot objectively see every single person who is in that situation — most seem bitter/unhappy to an extent, but if they are not acknowledging that they cannot help themselves and need help, how can the situation change?

The key point I am making with this criticism is as follows: the idea that there is a metaphysical force surrounding the Earth that prevents most people from doing anything to change from a negative mindset to a neutral or positive one, a force that can only be broken if the vast majority of people on Earth become positively minded is absurd. The vast majority of people on Earth CAN take actions to improve their lives AND the lives of those closet to them (as long as those close to them are not negatively minded to a ridiculous degree).

Continued

a reply to: Dark Ghost

3) Implying, NOT STATING, that "embracing victim-hood as a way to fix things" is a plausible reason not to try and change things yourself

Please note, you have not said anywhere those exact words but I do feel you are alluding to the idea as being acceptable. Eg. There is a force/frequency surrounding the Earth that makes it difficult for the average person to develop and maintain anything other than a negative mindset. Considering this is the case, you cannot expect the average person to "just overcome it and try" when they are suspended by the negative mindset they didn't choose to have. Therefore, until the external environment around them can be altered to some degree, there is realistically nothing they can do to improve. If others would alter their behaviour to accommodate these victims, they would have a better chance of being able to improve.

This type of thinking strikes a strong chord with me personally. I have spent most of my life negatively affected by at least two people very close to me who have "embraced victim-hood" to such a degree that until 2 weeks ago, I did not even finally acknowledge this was their key problem. I strongly suspected it for a long time, but I acknowledged it was real only about 2 weeks ago.

As you can probably tell, I am not a negatively-minded person OR a person that embraces victim-hood, at present. I'm not certain if I am neutral or excessively optimistic for certain, but I feel strongly I am "reasonably optimistic". How is it possible that I am able to be reasonably optimistic and reject embracing victim-hood if I have spent so much of my 31 years associating with these two embracers of victim-hood? (who remember have been very close to me). How was I able to not become like them? If it were truly contagious, then I should have been infected LONG ago beyond repair.

Am I somebody special or extraordinary? Or am I just somebody who has recently had a life-changing epiphany?I feel strongly it is the second, I cannot prove it, but I feel strongly it's the second because there are FAR more people in history AND far more people living today who have overcome MUCH worse situations and completely turned their lives around for the better. This epiphany I have had is being used to change things, but it's impossible to happen over night.


Thank you for reading and I hope most people can appreciate both _damon amazing reply as well as take my criticisms of his reply into consideration.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Even that i am not very excited by your treads i must now admit i have read most of them.
Write a book DG.

The easiest way to make a turn around sit there a wait the extreme of annihilation becomes creation the rest is just this nonsense called ideation.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

First off, beautiful thread. Very courageous of you to describe your relationship to this way of thinking and being.

As a person who studies development, I always try to remind myself of the person who believes this - their history as individuals, and a realistic set-of-conditions that "scaffolded" this way of experiencing reality into their lifeworld.

Humans are complicated creatures who are able to delude themselves about reality because they fail to emphasize the right concepts, the right references: if you don't know that your thinking is a system - as Terrence Deacon as conceptualized it, as well as the physicist David Bohm, than you are mindlessly and naively imaging an "outlet" from lifes problems, difficulties and their joys, when you choose to be a nihilist - as the choice or the decision itself is never simply a one-moment thing, but neurologically, is an expression of the highest-level constraint on information-flow that a Human body can produce. Nihilism says "I will not take responsibility", and so every incoherent act - and yes, such objective realities exist - would generate and strengthen an "entropy" dynamic whereby a certain amount of negative feeling is produced when real, objective, ontological necessities for psychological, neurological, and social flourishing (hence why it is objective - all 3 worlds are maximized in their complexity via feelings of goodness) are repeatedly violated - not paying people when you agreed to it, stealing money from people, sleeping with escorts and pretending that they aren't unhappy doing this, aren't adapting to a difficult world by adopting false-narratives about "why they love what they do". All this hatred for thinking, reflection, etc - is a function of a cultural-system that has normalized a Machiavellian ethic that confuses reality and finally convinces the "host" that the replaced-reality - the worshiped image (the static, non-living "idol") is more real than the relationships which actually underlie its dynamical emergence.

This problem is a deeply psychological one - and it strikes strongest at philosophical types whose pride wont let them admit that they've been naive at a logical-philosophical level, by not recognizing, for instance, the epistemological superiority of a processual metaphysics i.e. AF Whitehead, and that there is no real "mind-body" problem when a process-metaphysics is assumed, and emergence is understood and accepted as a function of complex self-organizing dynamics within nature.

Ontology (what is real) and epistemology (how we know) are fundamentally tied to ethics (how we relate to one another), because what we feel i.e. how we know, is actually a function of whether or not we acknowledge one anothers needs (ethics). The brain-mind actually shows stochastic i.e. non-correlated behavior when a person experiences itself being negatively known by another mind. Years of not respecting this essential principle would literally transform Human brain-minds, and with that change, their languages would come to reflect and express these "changes in appetite", or more properly, changes in self-regulation, and this strength would gain as the environment became more and more exapted for the perpetuation of power.

I mean: this is the truth. It's ok to admit "I belong to a stupid species". And also to admit "but I believe I should try to affirm what I know to be true, and to have actually once existed among Humans i.e. a healthy self-other dynamic that made life exceeedinly pleasurable.

The hardest thing, I think, for a nihilist to accept, is that their feelings are emergent properties - not "real" - or as real as they sometimes take them to be. Acknowledging ones pain is essential, and this is why an existential is important. But settling for "meaninglessness" despite the remarkable order in the world is a weird and deeply self-destructive relation. At some point, the mind must reclaim its naturalness: must claim that I am of nature, care for nature, and see me own nature as not anything other than nature at its most complex. To say I care, is to say "I care more about being true to what is real, than to my fears of experiencing shame and confusion from the faces of others who don't understand why I speak this way".

It takes a lot of spiritual confidence to know - really know - that what we do matters, and that renouncing ones mental responsibility to lifes conditions, is to renounce, at the same time, the nature of the Human condition.

Relationships construct us. If you want to get away from Nihilism as an ordering principle in your existence, it wont happen by opening up to other nihilists who - like you, feel the same fear of abanonding what is familiar and known.

Change happens in the context of a different ordering-reality. People who are loving, kind playful, generous, relaxed - help us become just like that. This is what it means to be a "dynamicaly constituted being". We are agents - but agents constrained by the behavior of our environments and relations with others.

Don't be so quick to congratulate yourself. Other people have told you these exact things in the past, and you acted like a moody petulant child.

Its good to see you're getting out of the morose teenager phase, but I guess time will tell how fully you've internalized the truth.

a reply to: Norge

Thank you for the very nice words. I don't make these types of threads so that I can get a massive flag/star boost, which if it happens is a nice bonus. I don't make these types of threads so that I can have an echo chamber of "yes I agree. great job!" and nothing further. I make them because I believe the type of deep thinking I am promoting for others will significantly help improve their lives as well as my own, and we CAN learn from each other.

In regards to the book thing, I would love to be able to be published! Not just for material gain but also for the self-satisfaction I would get out of it too. The trouble is, right now I cannot devote the time and effort into making a book that is necessary to give it my best. And even if I could, there is no guarantee my work would appeal to enough people to make the whole effort and cost worthwhile. Which is a shame because I do truly believe I could make a huge difference to many others but the nature of the publishing business doesn't work that way.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Thank you. We have clashed in the past and I am now willing to admit the truth: I did skim through your replies but didn't take the time to read through them carefully due to two factors: (1) I was angry with you at the time, and (2) I found your extensive vocabulary extremely difficult to grasp while trying to simultaneously process your overall message. Every time I would see a word I had no idea about, I would have to consult the dictionary or internet to get clarity on. This was happening so often just with you in particular that I was wondering whether it was worth the effort. The reality is that if I found that to be the case, I should have refrained from participating in your threads. At first I did not do this, but soon after I did, which is a shame because you do seem like somebody that is extremely knowledgeable. But that is the truth and now I have revealed it.

originally posted by: Talorc
Don't be so quick to congratulate yourself. Other people have told you these exact things in the past, and you acted like a moody petulant child.

Its good to see you're getting out of the morose teenager phase, but I guess time will tell how fully you've internalized the truth.

That is an unfair assessment. You are correct that others have told me similar things in the past and I did not handle them or appreciate them correctly at the time. THAT I admit and cannot refute. But is it necessary to place the label of "moody petulant child" or "morose teenager phase" when I have been very open (perhaps you personally do not know this, but I have in many other threads revealed) about my battles with mental health conditions such as severe depression, OCD and anxiety?

At this stage it seems:

i) Either you are familiar with those mental health conditions (through basic research or personal experience) AND have acknowledged I experience them, and you STILL maintain it is a fair comparison.

ii) Either you are familiar with those mental health conditions (through basic research or personal experience) AND have acknowledged I experience them, and you do NOT feel it was a fair comparison to make at the time.

iii) You are unfamiliar to an extent with those conditions AND have acknowledged my experience with them, and STILL maintain you made a fair comparison at the time

iv) You are unfamiliar to an extent with those condition AND were unaware until now that I have experienced them, and now do not maintain what you said and will take it back

v) You feel I am now trying to justify telling others not to play the victim while now choosing to play the victim for my own purposes, which would make me a hypocrite

After having just finished reading this reply, which one of the above five options do you believe is closer to the truth? If you don't think reality fits any of those mentioned above, please provide an alternative.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Labels... jut how many are you willing to accept? Since when are you a label? When you first learn to come running to your name like some dog? How about when triggered with those dog whistles... or those beliefs you claim to hold when they all originated from someone else?

Let fools carry their own burdens.