NIHILISM
A term becomes more clear, when you make use of its verb and not of its noun. For "nihilism" it's the verb "to annihilate meaning", for example. When a thing is meaningless, it contains nothing to hold on to. It offers no thing instead of some thing.
Nihilism is an excellent exaggerator, because everything that appears exaggerated also serves as a contrast.
Nihilism as a denier of meaning stands in contrast to the over-fulfiller of meaning;
or meaning overkill.
Nihilism stands in stark contrast to the laser-sharp overemphasis on the meaning of things. Since it is impossible not to give meaning to things, it is nevertheless possible to recognise through nihilism what is virtually drowned in meaning.
If people were able to annihilate meaning, they probably wouldn't be people but something other than 'people'.
The wrong thing is to want to bring oneself to such an advanced nihilistic view, not because it's wrong but because it's impossible.
In trying to make the impossible possible, it becomes wrong.
You know the answer, why it's wrong? Can you formulate it?
What nihilism is good for is to serve as a complete exaggeration, as the strongest contrast to the grim or naive overemphasised clinging to life, i.e. the denial of one's own mortality.
Too much meaning contrasts with no meaning at all.
It's not wrong to love or hate life.
If you leave that statement alone, it is acceptable. If you fight it or force it, it becomes wrong.
What is said and what is meant
What is said: ‘Human rights are not up for debate’.
What is meant: ‘We will not tolerate any resistance to the legalisation of XY ideology.’
What is to be understood: ‘We stand up for human rights.’
- The sceptic questions this statement and every other statement.
- The gullible believes good faith has been confirmed.
- The No. 2 meaning but No. 1 saying, is the bad believer and dishonest.
Therefor, there is TOO MUCH MEANING given to one thing.
Like in a painting, which actually turns out balanced so far, but then you can't stop to fiddle around and emphasize one certain aspect way too much. Then you ruin it.
You cannot annihilate the painting, though (painting = all past, present and future life).
it's interesting to see how much you can remove
before you have to start putting stuff back
Isn't it?
It's when I start to think in complementaries instead of opposites. One thing supports the other, for good and for bad.
I am doing a painting class for a while now. And I started to find out, how to see properly (though I was drawing and painting all my life). The things one paints are like that what I tried to express here.
I studied psych but never nihilism beyond the surface. So I was not really very aware of it most of my life. In 2016 I went through a dark and traumatizing time, became seriously ill, and was very depressed. To me, it felt like I had discovered a frightening truth about life: nothing matters. I couldn't think of anything that mattered to me, or that should matter to anyone. I challenged my wife and others: "What matters? Prove it!" The strange thing is, today I can't really remember how I felt then. I can't empathize with the past me who felt that nothing mattered. I was 100% sure of it at the time, and remember feeling like I was staring into the abyss. Now, I'm almost certain I was wrong, but there's still a nagging sensation about it all.
To hit rock bottom and then to decide for life instead of death (suicide) is, in the severity and actuality of depression, quite a task. When depression has its strongest grip, nothing is of interest, indeed. I can confirm.
It is even too exhausting to challenge another person. Or if you did, to even be further interested in an answer. How was it, when you challenged your wife?
The moment when interest in facing up to life returns is probably the moment when the fear towards life is overcome.
A depression, when it was a severe one, characterizes itself as "not being able to remember the details of daily life" but only the heaviness and grayness of its overwhelming presence.
I agree, the wrongness of finding oneself in a state of "nothing matters" is the impossibility of being able to have that notion in total - not only for now but stretching out into the future. If one feels the totality of it as something inescapable, the only way out would be self kill. Finding it wrong is to decide against it.
The experience of depression and to have outlived it, without seeing myself as a victim, is something I value. It frees me from resentment and to seek for someone to blame that I had been in that state of depression, in the first place.
Nihilism itself, as a concept, I do not equate with depression.
Does it make sense to you that to annihilate meaning (go to the very dead end of personal thought) actually can bring refreshment?
Sure, it makes sense to me that X --> refreshment, where X = "going to the very dead end of personal thought", because anything can theoretically bring refreshment. I don't know for certain that X (going to the very dead end of personal thought) would bring ME, or any particular person in a particular situation, to refreshment. But it makes sense to me that it's possible.
"Nihilism itself, as a concept, I do not equate with depression."
I don't know what Nihilism is, beyond various definitions humans attribute to the word. I can approximate an understanding of the concept, but would rather not use a label to frame it. Your post mentioned the idea of nothing mattering, which is what I responded to, because I have personal experience with that feeling. For me, it happened during the depths of serious depression, not before, and not after. So for me, nothing mattering is related to depression. How that relates to what people call Nihilism, I'm not sure.
Thank you for your analysis.
To conclude that "nothing matters" in a depressed state of mind
differs from
To conclude that "nothing matters" in a fresh state of mind.
These are temporar states of mind, I would say. Nihilism is defined in the dictionaries. I can use it for communication purposes, in order to contrast nihilism towards something other than itself. If you consider it unhelpful for contrast use, I won't say anything against it.
Thank you for commenting.
I'm sure we could figure out a definition for nihilism that we both generally agree on, but who cares? I don't. I was just telling you my personal experience with "feeling as though nothing matters", a concept you brought up. You want to relate it to nihilism, that's your choice.
If the conclusions of a "depressed mind" are different from the conclusions of other minds, how do we determine if a mind is depressed or not? I'm trying to see your point.
Actually, I didn't once use that phrase "nothing matters" in my text, it was titled in the YT video. I used the subject nihilism as the most exaggerated form of "nothing" to point out that it stands in stark contrast to "everything", i.e. giving too much meaning to something, identifying with something.
Then I gave an example of people who build up an ideology and over-identify with it. And use a trick by saying that human rights are not up for debate.
I need not to determine the minds of others, they make them up on their own.
With my last sentence I was describing the difference between light mindedness and heavy mindedness, something I experience as altering. On this spectrum you can hit rock bottom or you can also feel serenity. You initially gave me an example of rock bottom to which I related.
Clearly your post is about a state where nothing matters, but you're correct that you never used the term "nothing matters". So I withdraw my original comment, as I believed you were talking about something I have experience with. Also because I find you are fighting to win, not arguing to find truth. To me those are not the same thing and the difference matters. Carry on.
I did not relate "nihilism" to depression. It was not my clear intention to do so. If it were so, I would have visibly talked in my post about "depression" linked to nihilism.
Though I - after you talked about it - confirmed it to be true that in such a depressed state of mind the thought that "nothing matters" is very dominant, depression in relation to nihilism was not part of my given context.
I followed what you believed I was talking about and added some of my thoughts on the subject as I went along.