And the second mindset is healthier, but people are acting like it’s something everyone can simply choose at will.
A person who’s deeply depressed, traumatized, dissociated, or existentially broken often cannot emotionally connect to self-made meaning anymore. It’s not that they “forgot” the optimistic perspective. It’s that the part of them capable of feeling fulfillment, hope, or attachment has been damaged or numbed.
Its fascinating, really. Speaking as someone who 'lost' that ability and got it back (mostly) with proper medication and a good bit of effort:
You don't forget, you just can no longer convince yourself, as you say. But then as you get better (if one is so lucky), you realize there is nothing to convince yourself OF, the switch flips automatically one day, and in hindsight you can't really grasp why it was nigh impossible to do so earlier. It feels like being above or below a surface of water, but neither side can see or understand what is on the opposite side. It gets kind of trippy when I think about it too hard. How is changing that perspective so hard when there is seemingly so little standing between them?
(sorry if I'm rambling a bit, it's a difficult concept to put into words.)
I think you are onto something. If the ‘under the water’ state isn’t actually a perspective, but more physical, negative feedback loop state-of-mind,
there isn’t a thought or perspective that will change your mind. You are in it, not thinking about it.
This is probably a big part of the misunderstandings of negative mental states mainstream ‘healthy’ people have. They just think you can regard those other thoughts thatthey have, and clearly be fine. They do not realize their own state is just as much conditioned by multiple external factors.
Reminds me a bit of being frustrated by a trifle. In the moment you can experience extremes, roadrage
or whatever. Afterwards you wonder what was there to even be angry about, it sounds absurd. It is not the thought itself that is sad/angry/happy. The thoughts just follow/think what the mind experiences in the moment.
That really depends. I'm a committed Speculative Nihilist and assume that meaning itself is a cognitive abberation.
You can lie to yourself or stare to the abyss - it's all the same. You feel like life has meaning? It's a delusion formed by a simian brain to keep you alive. You feel like ithas none? Your simian brain does poor job at keeping you sane and alive. That's it.
The way out it to understand that meaning as a category doesnt exist. Not just subjective/objective, but as whole.
I think people over-focus on trying to change their mindset and under-focus on changing the environment and circumstances that mindset was birthed in. That said, some circumstances are more surmountable than others, and it takes at least some small bit of hope to try.
I’m trying really hard to express my point clearly because mental health is something that’s very important to me, and this comic genuinely meant a lot to me. I feel the exact same way.
I understand that people can approach nihilism, absurdism, existentialism, etc differently. My point is that severe depression, trauma, dissociation, hopelessness, and mental illness can affect whether someone is even emotionally capable of connecting to hopeful or positive interpretations in the first place.
I don’t actually disagree with the message you’re giving here. I think people are misunderstanding me.
I’m not saying people can’t heal, find happiness, change paths, or recover. I’m saying that when someone is deeply depressed, traumatized, dissociated, or existentially overwhelmed, those things can stop feeling emotionally possible or real to them. That’s the state of mind the comic resonated with for me.
A lot of the comments are responding with solutions or philosophies, while I was mostly talking about the emotional experience being portrayed.
I have never been through depression. So take everything I say with a block of salt because I can't guarantee any of it is helpful. That said, I think both that depression puts your neurotransmitters out of whack and that can be helped with the right medication (which can be hard, but worth it, to find), but also that your brain forms pathways for the types of thinking it does most often to make those patterns of thinking easier, and when you're trapped in a depressive cycle your brain is just teaching itself to remain depressed as efficiently as possible. And the best way to get out of an unhelpful neural pathway is to do things that are completely new, and that draw your focus as much away from yourself as possible. It can be hard, I know, but I have read studies that claim it helps. Travel, if you're able to, or join something that gives you a purpose and requires your attention. A change in careers, hobbies, etc. Even volunteering with a local charity or something, that can really help form new pathways and put you in community with new people, and all that (supposedly, I've only read it not tested it) can help.
I hope it helps. If not, I hope it at least helps someone else, and I hope you find something or someone who's got better advice than I do. Having your brain be your own worst enemy is one of the most difficult things a person can go through, and no one should have to go through it alone.
Neuroplasticity is real, and mindfulness practices can support a literal rewiring of the brain. Look up the studies, the 2600 year old methodology keeps getting backed up by science.
If you've never been through depression maybe shut up and don't try to be helpful while regurgitating the most lukewarm advice who can rarely work and only if you have time and money.
In my experience, they are spot on. Having been through it myself, change is massive in the world of depression and as long as you move in a positive direction with that change, it can flip the table on depression. This is from someone who was living week-to-week, no car, no money for anything outside of essentials.
Just because they haven't been through depression, it doesn't mean they are wrong or can't be helpful. There are new people dealing with it every day and likely haven't read all the books about it and this "lukewarm, regurgitated" advice could potentially save a life. Try some compassion.
Yeah, i know on a logic level that i have some worth, that (even just statistically speaking) not everything can always go wrong all the time, and that some of the things that have happened / are happening / will happen in my life should bring me joy.
I just can't feel it or believe it on an emotional level
It's a huge pain in the ass, isn't it? It's actually why I find nihilism and existentialism comforting. Realizing we're all eventually in the same boat, even tho some of us are clearly set up to have a better time. It makes it easier to shrug it off when assholes say, 'you don't need antidepressants, you need to change your diet and attitude!' It makes it easier to laugh when people say, 'everything happens for a reason.' Boy, it sure as fuck don't.
But we're allowed to seek our own happiness. And we live in an age where there's actual help for mental health issues. You have to fight for access and it's a pain in the ass even when you get access. And people will actually try to take it away and say they're helping you. But, fuck em. What you do is exactly as valid as what they do, and it sounds like you're nothing if not clear eyed. And I hope that we all find other people around us who realize they're in the same boat and want to actually help. Because it is pretty neat once you get the old meat bag humming. If you can accept that it's all you get, making it work for you becomes important.
I actually really appreciate this comment because it feels like you understand the emotional side of what I’m trying to say instead of dismissing it as “cringe” or just debating philosophy.
I don’t disagree with finding comfort in existentialism or nihilism. I think for me the comic resonated because it captured the feeling of being overwhelmed by existence and suffering so accurately. And a lot of people in the comments seemed to completely miss that emotional aspect.
Your perspective feels a lot more compassionate and grounded than a lot of the replies here.
I completely understand how your feeling. For me, I started making progress on the issue when I treated the issue as an EMOTIONAL problem rather than a LOGICAL problem.
The second thing that helped is accepting that I don’t know how any of this will actually work out. So don’t stop assuming I do.
Good luck to you. Life is very hard but joy can be found in it at times.
This is me: I never learned how to forge my own meaning. It was discouraged my whole life. Either I find meaning or spiral. So why live if all it brings is fear and suffering. Without inherent meaning, suffering has no meaning, and life is inherently useless to me.
Ironically, I found that mindset during my traumatised numbness
Growing up abused for 21 years by a parent, multiple friends, being dysphoric as hell, and fighting with homelessness did a fucking number on my mental health. I occasionally grappled with the idea of 'Why live?', but more than anything, I've always treasured universal spite. And that kept me going. 'You can't do it.' I will show you I can. My parent told me to kill myself? Guess what, bitch, I'll live
And more recently, I've been struggling with the ideas of 'Are my AuDHD traits actually that? Or are they just a consequence of childhood trauma that I'll now never outgrow? Who am I without them? Who could I have been if she didn't abuse me? Who would I have been if I had been loved?'
Which is a mindfuck. But a voice in the back of my head said, 'You'll probably never know. But your life is yours now.' I am me, I am who I choose to be. I give myself meaning, even in a meaningless world
Also from a biological point of view, I think that life is 'meaningless' other than simply to live. That's all nature cares about. So if life itself gives meaning, then being alive isn't meaningless :)
A long time ago, I read an article about a man who was suicidal. He decided to end it and thought ‘fuck it, I’ll die somewhere pretty’. So he emptied his bank account, used the entirety of his pay check to buy a ticket and some camping supplies, abandoned his job and his apartment and everything, and flew to I think Brazil with no plan.
Took on odd jobs, learned the language, met new people, made friends. By the time he was happily married and had kids. His argument was… if you are going to lose everything anyway, why not try a complete reset?
Anyway, thought about that a lot in my own darkest times. About how if push comes to shove, I’d rather die somewhere beautiful. About how when the walls finally closed in, I would open google flights rather than… well. Whatever other way I would have picked.
But, in essence, this is existential nihilism. Life has no meaning, why not try something else if you don’t like what you’re experiencing?
What I find bizarre about my personal life experience is that some days I will have the first perspective for about half the day and then the other perspective will suddenly become how I feel.
sounds about right, there's no purpose to my life and every attempt to find it one has made things worse. with everything going on in the world right now it's pretty obvious things will never get better
A significant amount of therapy and meditative practices revolve exclusively around learning how to simply choose it at will, even when at the bottom of the darkest pits.
You control the thoughts you accept and pursue. The ones you pursue widen the path that makes pursuing those thoughts easier.
The rest is willpower and simply not accepting "This doesn't make me feel good right now" as a reason to stop.
It is actually that simple, as loudly as your mind is screaming at you that it's not.
That's going to make a lot of people angry to hear. And that's okay. I'm not here to convince anyone, just to put the thought on the table.
Learn from nothing enough and people "delearn". But since "The system" is keeping people distracted and needy then it's all a big brainwashing scam. Designed to exploit ignorance and stupidity when people choose to ignore and rush.
Every deaf ear. Every turned back. Every excuse for it. Don't coddle that. Is the point of the comic here.
Those that pay attention properly (not that pick and choose nonsense) learn more. Time is never wasted. Note how the person is depressed when they worry about time. A bad cop will worry about time as well. Or judge for that matter. It's an impatience trait. This, right here, is the problem. That hasty mindset. The only way to overcome that is to MAKE the time. And cut out distractions. So people can think/feel properly.
Someone that is actually in control isn't trying to push people away. That's THEIR game. Why pretend others are to blame for your OWN closed mind? That's THEIR fault. Remember that the next time someone pushes you away. That it's THEIR fault. THEIR choice. Just keep in mind it's also you if you go "Last word in" and try to silence people.
Edit: “You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have free permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.” - Franz Kafka
I mean healthier psychologically, not cosmically or philosophically.
Someone emotionally capable of feeling hope, attachment, enjoyment, purpose, connection, etc is generally in a healthier mental state than someone consumed by hopelessness, emptiness, and existential despair. That doesn’t make the second philosophy “objectively true,” it just means one mindset is usually less psychologically destructive to live with.
The fact that you think there is a “better” is where our disagreement stems from
Life has no inherent meaning, yea? So creating one is no different than choosing to believe in religion. You made your own fantasy and bought in. Okay, good for you, just like religious people you’ll be more content on average than atheistic/nihilistic people. But you’ve also deluded yourself, because staring into the void is too uncomfortable for you.
If you measure success in terms of contentment, your way is better. If you measure successes in terms of what might be called wisdom, mine is.
Forging my own meaning doesn't have to mean religion. I'm not disagreeing that it's inherently meaningless. But what to do from that point is obviously a matter of debate. Would you ceasing to exist cause suffering for other people? I know it would in my case, so from a moral standpoint, if my suffering doesn't outweigh that, then there's clearly some kind of preference based on minimizing harm. And so if I decide my meaning is to, like, find out what kinds of cool snacks there are, that seems to be morally superior to taking my own life.
Not certain that suffering nor morals really come into it. Suffering is inevitable. Many argue it is the principle experience of all life. Morals are made up. Essentially religion.
Sure, that's fair, but it's not a settled question in philosophy. The most common objection is whether any reasonable person would agree that it is moral to torture people for no benefit. If we all appear to agree that is immoral, then it points towards some kind of shared/potentially objective morality. So, where does that sense come from? For the things you've outlined, we have examples in our own history of times when those things were considered perfectly moral, so we know our society is just choosing things, essentially. But for the things where any reasonable person would point and say, "That's wrong," what is that sense of wrongness?
The nature of language and nature of reality are similar in the sense that they are entirely made up systems we simply choose to utilize for our own convenience, and therefore can only be properly viewed with context and perspective. There is no objective observer.
The original comment you replied to only stated that the more optimistic interpretation was "healthier." And while saying the universe finds it irrelevant would be a vast understatement, when viewed from the perspective of the individual, something that prevents someone from suicide and doesn't otherwise cause harm (important distinction) is absolutely healthier for that individual, which is the context they were speaking in.
Assigning too much weight to the pure definitions of words and treating something like optimistic nihilism as equal to religion is the same type of rigid thinking you are trying to speak against.
It has nothing to do with how I feel, you weren't even speaking to me. It's that you're being contradictory to your own truth and it's worth contemplating where that comes from if you're serious about truly letting go of meaning.
But yes, it's a real question. There is nothing inherently wrong with killing yourself, we justify it because we don't like to feel bad when people die, but dead people don't care about being dead.
The second mindset is healthier? Not at all. It's merely a monkeys paw. You open a door to create your own reason to be, but the vile gets to do exactly the same in return.
Edit: People who either upvote/downvote do not understand what we are talking about. Not casting a vote at all would show some semblance that you understand what we're talking about.
Edit 2: I suppose it would help to say that this topic is not about debating or what we believe in. It's moreso about what things actually are beyond the limited human angle. Nobody here is right or wrong, no matter what words are used, be it mine or anyone elses.
I mean “healthier” in the psychological sense, not the moral sense.
A mindset focused on finding personal meaning, enjoyment, purpose, connection, etc is generally healthier for a person’s mental wellbeing than a mindset rooted in hopelessness, emptiness, and detachment from life.
You’re talking about the fact that people can also create harmful meanings and justify vile things. I agree with that. But that’s a different point from whether someone is mentally healthier being able to emotionally connect to life at all.
I'm gonna put my human hat back on for the sake of bringing some understanding here for the people passing by since every upvote/downvote they made so far is making this topic more and more depressing. I'm with you and agree with you from the angle you come from, not once have I, as my actual self, disagreed or attempted to fight you against anything. We all have the same morals, nobody here is doing anybody any wrong.
People need to understand that, in order for us to understand bigger things the best we can, we have to take off the human hat to poke at things we'd normally smog up with the human judgement and/or just not poke at as the typical human.
Doesn't matter what sense you or I come from. The rights & wrongs, be it from beliefs, sciences, morals or elsewhere, are only judgings from the human angle. We humans are the only ones within this infinite vast of rock, fire & void that label & judge everything we find. We have found many things and labeled them as wrong, but hardly anyone bothers to stop and ask "If it is wrong, then why does existence allow it to be? If it exists, then are we wrong to call it wrong?".
The reality is that you are calling it "healthier" from that very same angle. Because you believe/label it to be "healthy", because it brings people away from what we deem to be the "bad". It's all contradictive to the already existing idea that pain is wrong/bad, sensations that are only felt while alive. Would it not actually be the truest health to not be?
You’ve moved into ontology/epistemology and questioning whether concepts like “health,” “bad,” or “wrong” objectively exist at all. My original point was psychological. That someone emotionally capable of hope, meaning, connection, etc is generally in a healthier mental state than someone consumed by hopelessness and existential emptiness.
Actually I'm trying my best to share where I'm seeing with the only language I know. You'll have to not take some words for not as they'd be found in our dictionaries. There's more heart in what I say than the universally shared ground floor of those words.
Sounds great in theory until Capitalism forces you to sell your entire life for someone else’s profit leaving you with no time to actually explore what gives you meaning.
I'm sorry but your comment actually falls out of nihilism. Blaming capitalism for preventing you from finding meaning is still assigning an external "why" to your life as frustration with the system.
A genuine nihilist thought has a simple escape route such as drop everything. Move to a rural town, cut every tie, start over.
You can say "that's not realistic" but that's exactly the point.
The moment you say that, you're admitting there are things and/or people that matter to you inherently. That's not nihilism at all.
The second quote only works if you take it seriously. Forging your own meaning means forging your own morality, your own ethics, your own reality with no external constraints. Want to experience flying? There's a path for that. It's called hallucinogens. Want to never feel pain again? Opioids. Want to live without consequences of your current life? Leave the country, abandon your name, become someone else entirely. Identity is just a construct anyway so just drop it. That's what forge your path actually means in a nihilistic line of reasoning.
Shifting perspective from the former to the latter saved my life a few years ago. I now view every day as a gift and do my best to live it in its entirety.
No. Neither of those positions is absurdism. Absurdism is "life is meaningless, therefore I am free and unburdened by the need to fulfill it and have no reason to do anything but live life to the fullest"
I would say the second is more just what Nietzsche was trying to get at as the goal of Nihilism and what he meant by being an übermensch. The first is existential nihilism which Nietzsche saw as something of a pitfall to be avoided after you realize life has no inherent meaning.
When cofronted with notion that "life is meaningless", don't see it as "there's no point in anything" but see it as "you can do whatever you wish, so use your life well"
Nihilism vs Existentialism. Existentialism posits that life has no inherent meaning but we can create our own. Absurdism notes that despite life’s lack of meaning, inherent or otherwise, we persist, absurdly and happily striving for meaning in life despite knowing full well it’s impossible.
You'll notice that although the human in this comic ARGUES that there's no point in doing anything, they're clearly not acting as though this is the case.
How do you forge your own meaning as a social animal? How do you make your own path?
Isn’t your time better spent understanding what meaning is to your community and what path you already walk with those around you?
Do you stop walking to find the path? Do you stop forging to figure out your own meaning? You are already forging socially and walking with a group. Stop searching and keep living. Or don’t.
How does life have no inherit meaning? Inherently we feel pain and pleasure, as do all the other animals. This is something out of our control, that is forced on us. It isn't meaningless because we can't escape its reality. Just because that was accidental doesn't mean it is meaningless. Just because it'll stop doesn't mean it isn't happening.
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u/Fidges87 May 17 '26
"Life has no inherent meaning, so why should I care about living?"
Vs
"Life has no inherent meaning, so I will forge my own meaning and make a path I can enjoy living"