A true nihilist would believe in nothing. It’s a spectacularly harsh way of looking at life. Nihilism is the philosophy that captures what I just shared.
To be more precise, a nihilistic way of looking at things.
I know, that’s a pretty grim, pessimistic way of looking at things. And from a cosmic perspective, there is no point in what we are doing here – none! Even after we all die, things will continue to still be. And further along the way, we also learn that these desires, even if the cumulative aspirations of all who live on this planet, no matter how good and honorable they may be, are insignificant for the universe to continue to exist. Somewhere along the way though, we learn that the other individuals who roam the streets, who attend the school we attend, who work alongside us, have their own personal views and their own personal desires. After all, for at least 5 years, we were cared for, nourished, fed, washed, and put to sleep by our parents. In fact, for quite some time, for somewhere between 10 and 20 years – sometimes even longer – we think that the world is somehow indebted to us. For us, we’re the most important things on this planet. Something smaller in scale, but critical for us as individuals – our own survival and prosperity. Yet, we’re not at all impressed by the gigantic universe. A human mind can’t grasp how vastly, hugely, astonishingly enormous the place we exist in is. That, in the grand scheme of things, a person – or all humans for that matter – are utterly insignificant.Įarth is big.
But most importantly, you, at some point, without forcing yourself to think about it, realize that things will continue to move even without you. The natural disasters that befall the earth are not caused by monstrously big immortal deities trying to make us worship them. And the moon will take over at the end of the sunny day. Eventually, we learn that the sparkling things that exist somewhere far away in the universe are not light bulbs switched on especially for us, they just are.