Saturday March 12th, 2022
I’ve always thought it intriguing how these two concepts, which start out from a similar central idea (the inevitability of death), arrive at entirely different conclusions with regard to the “meaning of life.” When I was first introduced to these ideas (way back in high school), I remember nihilism being an interesting concept, but personally being much more drawn toward the ideas behind existentialism.
I expand on this in the full post below!
Existentialism seemed to have much more potential to inspire actions that might help the world become a little better. Nihilism, on the other hand, seemed like it had the potential to cause paralysis of action – to not want to do anything – either in our own lives, or in the world generally. After all, if you thought the world was meaningless, why would you have a desire to try and improve it?
In this way, nihilism seemed very easy to spiral a person toward a defeatist mentality (of “why should I do anything if nothing matters?”).
My impression is that nihilism is generally more familiar in today’s society. Many are familiar with the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, who is usually most associated with the concept of nihilism. Over the years, I was surprised to see existentialism brought up much less often. I wondered why this was – is nihilism taught more? Possibly. Or, is it because in today’s news climate, it is understandable many might be drawn to the meaninglessness of being surrounded by near-constant dire and dreadful events occurring around the world?
Whichever the reason, this is what inspired me to do a comic about the differences between the two ideas. Nihilism can be seductive – with the atrocities we witness, both in our lives and globally – the meaning of it all can seem difficult to grasp. No one knows what the meaning of life is. I can see how it might be tempting to respond to this apparent “lack of meaning” with the nihilistic “nothing matters.” There is a logic to it.
We have to grasp, however, that whether meaning exists or not, it does not change the fact that we will continue to be here (at least for the time being). We will continue to exist, whether or not there is meaning to our lives. It is almost inconsequential whether our lives have meaning or not, because we will still continue existing either way. Thinking about it from this perspective is probably what makes my general outlook tend to align more toward an existentialist one.
The idea being, if we will be here anyway, might it make sense to do what we can while we still are here? For me personally, it hits me hard whenever I think about how perplexing a thought it is, to think with all my troubles and worries, how one day, the world will wake up without me or someone I love in it. Will anything I have done or experienced mattered? I don’t know. It’s a question that cannot be answered.
Because it can’t be answered, it makes me want to focus instead on what I do know. I know who I am close to and care about today. If I can improve something about someone’s day, I know I can do that. I know what my goals and aspirations might be for today or for the future. I can focus on those, because those are something I can control.
When I consider all the things I know I can do – the things that I know I can control, such as improving someone’s day, or taking steps to improve something about my life or skills – this ironically almost makes nihilism seem pointless to me by comparison!
Further Reading
If you might be curious to learn more about existentialism, looking up Viktor Frankl might be a good place to start. Here is his Wikipedia page. He was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who helped popularize the concept of existentialism, particularly in the Bay area during the 1960’s and 70’s. (I only learned this recently!)
His book about his experiences living in concentration camps explores how he put his existentialist ideas into practice in order to survive, and was published in English as Man’s Search for Meaning. Here’s the Wikipedia page for his book. Interestingly, the book’s title was initially translated as From Death-Camp to Existentialism, before being changed to the current version.
Even though I’ve always had a mild interest in existentialism, and my general outlook has tended to unintentionally lean toward an existentialist one, I have not read this book! I plan to read it this year, and am highly looking forward to doing so. Perhaps it might inspire future comics!
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