Struggling With Nihilism -- What Can I Do?

[PetarKa]

Maybe I've been thinking too much, but I not see the world as pointless. I say to myself "We'll die anyway and it won't matter whether I lived a great or awful life (whatever "great" and "awful" mean). What's the point?"

This causes depressing, disempowering thoughts and emotions in me. I even think sometimes "Why not end it all?"

I'm affraid. I don't know how to cope with this...

Please post any possible things I could do (book recommendations, methods, ideas, techniques, etc.).

Thank you in advance.

[Christian]

Firstly, the problem with being a nihilist is that you add negative meaning to the fact life has no meaning. In reality, the fact that life has no meaning is in itself meaningless. Reality is deeply, profoundly meaningless and there is nothing "bad" about it.

Secondly, the other issue is that you are quite unaware of how your thinking affects ordinary physical reality. David Bohm who was a brilliant physicist talks about how important it is to have proprioception of thought. That means awareness of thought itself when it is taking place so you don't suffer the consequences of thinking without being aware that you are thinking. When you think that reality has no meaning and add negative emotions/meaning to that thought (and are unaware of it 99% of the time), reality becomes meaningless, dark and depressing and you get all these effects as you described. Become aware of the systemic, mechanical nature of thought and its relationship to perception of physical reality and you can stop this pattern.

Highly recommend reading the book "thought as a system" by David Bohm. You can find it in Leo's booklist in the category epistemology.

[Joseph Maynor]

It's kinda paradoxical that on the one hand life has no meaning, but on the other hand it has the meaning you give it.  Life is neutral.  You can either cause it to get worse or get better.  Might as well cause it to get better.  And the older you get the more you will appreciate your life because you will see how far you've come and where you still want to go.  Life is like a blank canvass.  It's up to you what to do with it.  You can tear it up and trash it, or you can learn to paint on it like Salvador Dali.  Either way, what matters is what you got out of it.  In other words, breathe meaning into your own life.  Don't look outward for meaning, create your own.  Then your life becomes a work of art that you are invested in.  And then you can start to look at your life with a sense of pride and contribution.  

Edited June 17, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Truth]

I want to help you get to the root of your issue here. 

 

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so” - Shakespeare

 

A meaningful life/reality vs a pointless life/reality is truly all up to interpretation. Have you realized for something to have meaning or substance you have to point at it and tell yourself that it has meaning/significance or no meaning and no significance?

 

What I mean by this is you are supplying the meaninglessness just as much as you supply the meaningful. It’s just as equally valid to say something has meaning just as it’s equally valid to say something is meaningless

because the mind blowing insight you should be having from that is reality is absolutely free.

 

Free to be anything that it can be. Reality is like an open space for meaning and meaninglessness/pointlessness to exist literally. Reality is Absolute Freedom. The freeness is outside of everything else. Paradoxically that’s the point. Because to say something has no POINT is the point that signifies meaning. Can you read between the lines of what I’m saying?

 

To say something is meaningless/pointless or meaningful is only partially the truth of what teachers including Leo are trying to make you aware of. What they are trying to make you aware of is The Absolute. Absolute Freedom. Absolute Infinity. Absolute Detachment.

 

Please try and grasp the significance of what Absolute Freedom Is. Reality has a higher order truth at play here that you’re missing. Meaning refers to a point. Meaninglessness refers to not the point which reality contains both of. It’s absolutely free and that’s what everyone is talking about. Meaninglessness is everything else that normally one would consider to have no significance → The open nothing, the free reality, the Absolute Freedom. That is what’s meaningless! Freedom!

 

Debating to yourself about what’s meaningless and meaningful you’re just debating about what exists to have meaning and what does not exist to have meaning when the truth is BOTH are the case!  Meaning is something you can point at, meaningless is something you can’t point at and the absolute freedom contains everything for both to be true.

 

The most meaningful and meaningless beautiful profound, pointless insight you can have about reality is Absolute Freedom. That’s what existence is about. You’re completely free! But sadly nihilism has got you by the balls because you don’t see the big picture.

 

Can’t you see how your debating about the meaningless of things in turn gives them meaning. How paradoxical. Can’t you see how free you are?

 

 

 

 

 

[Sevi]

It's difficult to diagnose such things on a forum.. but somehow what I sensed from your post is "if I won't create something big enough, great enough or impressive enough then it's not worth it to live it" type of thing.

The more we become capable of deflating our egos the more we start to be comfortable to value a normal casual life too.

Generally a very influential parental figure causes grandiose expectations of the self, for very wide range of reasons (which causes one's ego to inflate a lot); then those become really heavy to bear and ending up with nihilistic sensations..

It can be helpful to do some work to differ the self and the personal values from very early influences on it,

I think what really matters is to be at peace in terms of to be a hard worker in life: to be capable of doing the things which ego will stubbornly refuse; it really deflates a lot of pressure out of life; then the simplicity starts to make more sense and creates a humble joy.

And hard worker here also can mean someone who works hard to tame and hopefully get rid of the ego completely.. that journey alone really creates one the most beautiful meanings in life, free from what you look like doing apparently.

Of course, defining "what's ego/ if the ego refuses the thing or is it smart and right thing to do" type of questions are life time occupations but still simply doing the homework in front of you is a perfect opener.

Of course, there can be many theories to offer here.. just a little bit of thoughts for you..

And a flower from a garden in CT and some beads they are antidotes for nihilism

[Sevi]