Nihilism helped me recognize the simple fact that we made all our ideas up. Not without a purpose, we use them as tools for survival, but we aren’t even obligated to survive because of anything objective. We do what we want, and most of us want to live and be happy. If you want to die, you will probably negatively impact those who care about you and might not repay all the labor that society put into raising you.
However, a person doesn’t objectively need to live for others, only for themselves. We might force someone to live for the sake of contributing labor society, but if we don’t help them achieve happiness, we’re basically enslaving them to misery that they never wanted or asked for.
Almost all people can be brought out of a suicidal mental state with modern methods, but they need resources to improve. In a system that doesn’t even guarantee people the basic resources to survive, I see most incidents of someone taking their own life as a societal failure. We let them down, just like we let down people that die from poverty. Mental healthcare, like all healthcare, should be available to everyone.
I had to be nihilistic for a while before I could realize everything was important. From flies to people to stars to dirt. Our human brains are a filter that cuts away stuff irrelevant to our survival and leaves us with a false perspective, a perspective where value is determined by only our needs. In truth, every person, every animal, every piece of matter, and more are infinitely important participatory pieces of an unimaginably important universe.
Agreed. I feel the same way. It’s like Nihilism is the gateway many of us have to pass through before we can understand our value (and the significance of life and all existence in general)
I wonder if you’ve come to the same conclusions that I have, or if your thinking branched off into something different.
Either way, we are who we were meant to be :)
Things matter. I just don’t give a fuck.
The Cartesian Principle is: “I think, therefore I am. And although you’re not thinking, the computer is just making you think you’re thinking; nevertheless, you think you’re thinking, therefore you possibly are.”
Things just happen. What the hell. – Didactylos, Hogfather by Terry Pratchett