I have been having a debate with a friend on what is actually the concept of Nihilism, and ended up entirely confused on it’s meaning after our conversation. I thought Nihilism meant believing that everything is meaningless and hence not doing anything. My friend says that it is more like Nihilism is questioning the meaning behind everything and accepting that we are the ones giving meaning. My take makes Nihilism seem like a bad thing, his take makes it seem really endearing. But what does it actually mean? I did check out earlier posts on this , but did just end up becoming more confused.
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Your friend is talking about optimistic nihilism. There are many different ways of interpeting nihilism but just going straight by the word it means nothing ism. Meaning you don’t have an ‘ism’ to existence.
There is no point to live, there is no reason to do anything, but that also means there is no reason NOT to live or not to do things.
When you come to the conclusion that everything is meaningless, you either have two choices. You here that and decide to be miserable about it, or you realize it and decide to make your existence as pleassurable as possible.
This does not equal hedonism either because well, you’re expected to live for a while, and I much rather have most of it be pleasant.
Goals are rewarding so I work for goals. I also get a positive response experiencing cool things, so I try to experience coom things, I smile more when people around me smile, so I try to make them smile more.
Some will say that this is better described as expressionism or such, but I definstely disagree. The very specific point that nothing matters is the driving force. At least for me.
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