How does one overcome nihilism?

Nihilism is a natural step to take after modernism but it's not very helpful. It's hard to say there are no consistent rules to existence or even morality.

The answer is to become the Ubermensch that Nietzsche predicted. Raise your hand if you believe you're up to the task.

yea, i always thought about nihilism as an inevitable step of 'post-modernism' and our modern society values. Is it the fortune of the XXI century to be miserable or it always has been like that

Nihilism destroyed old Western/Christian concepts of meaning. So the easy answer is to look east. Schopenhauer did the same.

Well I'm a avid believer in the noble eightfold path of the budda, the only philosophy that actually improves my life more than just a fun logic puzzle. Sooo no suffering for me personally, but ironic detachment does seem to be winning these days.

>I'm a avid believer in the noble eightfold path of the budda

Best thing logic has ever done for anybody

By realizing that nihilism puts you at odds with the universe. You think there is no reason to move, but it's impossible to be motionless.

There is something out there. And it is so strange and unreachable that it must be real.

>he doesn't want to overcome viparinama-dukkha and sankhara-dukkha

You realize you are depriving yourself of thousands of years of thought, just because some hippies back in the day thought you could get high off meditation, right?

Read Camus

That doesn't work, read Marquis De Sade

If you get religious, read Kierkegaard

If you are still an atheist, read Brief History Of Time, watch a tonne of Rick And Morty then take up a degree in physics. Might as well discover the meaning of the universe if you cant figure out the meaning in your life

I don't think that an objective meaning of life exists but as long as I do something that I enjoy / makes me happy I don't ever get upset about that. I only ponder that kind of stuff when I'm not in a good mood. So find things you enjoy and base your life around that. If there's not much you enjoy you probably have to look harder or have a different kind of problem alltogether - which doesn't have anything to do with the "meaning of life". In fact I think that the only objective meaning of life that there could possibly be is enjoying the ride (and helping other to do so, too, which is where I get my idea of morals from).

>no suffering for me personally
that's not how buddhism works

Why do you assume meaning has to be something that makes you feel good?

>some hippies back in the day thought you could get high off meditation
while hippies are dumb to claim you can "get high off meditation," i do experience certain moments of clarity while meditating that feel similar to the effects of a psychedelic. not like visual hallucinations but an inner calm and an intuition of the universe's interconnectedness.

Once one is infected with nihilism as a conclusion of study, it is impossible to overcome without Christianity. Nietzsche offers a cure, but, as Father Seraphim Rose showed, nihilism is like a virus: it just forms a dialectic with Nietzsche, and sublates him, making it stronger.

Materialism is inherently inadequate as a means for discerning yhe true nature of anything outside of base exterior mechanisms

I wouldn't claim that only Christianity offers one the potential to overcome nihilism, but it's clear that spiritual Tradition is what lies beyond the cloud nihilistic disillusionment

I wouldn't claim that only spiritual tradition offers the potential to overcome nihilism, but that "faith" in anything at all is what brings you out of nihilistic disillusionment.

It's a religion, close enough. "Spiritual traditionalism" is a pretty terrible religion though, since its definition characteristic is traditionalism, yet it is not any traditional religion

>Once one is infected with nihilism as a conclusion of study, it is impossible to overcome without Christianity.

Nihilism stems from the devaluing of the highest values. Christianity, like any system which measures the value of the world according to categories of pure fiction like aim, unity, or beingness, is the cause of passive nihilism. Passive nihilism is the decline and recession of the power of the spirit. Christianity posited values which philosophy and the sciences came to devalue, hence the parable of the madman by Nietzsche and his premonition of passive nihilism in the nearby future.

Meanwhile, there is another form of nihilism according to Nietzsche, active nihilism. Active nihilism has the same attributes as passive nihilism, but is a sign of increased power of the spirit. Values are not just devalued, but revalued. You need to inspect the situation genealogically to understand which one is happening. God's death, if you valued God prior, will throw you into passive nihilism. However, moving into active nihilism is how you begin to overcome it, the stage where you now begin to transvaluate the world. After that, the Overman becomes the meaning of the earth.

So, Christianity is definitely not the only way to overcome nihilism, in fact it's not a way to do so at all. Moving to Christianity would be a retrogression at this point, if you wanted to remain on top of philosophy at all. Aim, unity, and beingness as described in Will to Power are concepts not at all aligned with the world, so valuing them is not the best idea.

Is mayonnaise an ubermensch?

notes from underground was a satire of this kind of thinking. you completely misinterpreted it!

If your sex organ works, you will eventually feel the need to reproduce regardless of value system, so get at least moderately successful to do that. Regardless of what you believe in you'll end up incarnating some basic virtue in society through that simple act, i.e you won't be completely useless.

>if you wanted to remain on top of philosophy at all
yeah but I don't want to remain on top of philosophy, I want to not kill myself.

also if you wanted to remain on top of philosophy you wouldn't take your philosophical advice from a hypocritical self-help author

If you actually wanted to kill yourself, you would have just drank a fifth of vodka and shot yourself in the head already.

But if you never die, how do you expect to ever be reborn?

That's what the whole point of this is. You have to let go of your old values that no longer hold up to the world, grasping onto them desperately being the cause of that feeling of despair, come to accept their passing, and then move on to new values.

If you don't want to be reborn, then just die and stay dead, or become a whiner. Your choice.

Because one is not truly a nihilist, a true nihilist wouldn't even care to label himself as anything.

It's how the noble eightfold path works

This

Something is going on and i want to know what it is. Thats enough of a reason for me

If you read Nietzsche you'd understand that you didn't "conclude" you were a nihilist yourself, you were predisposed to draw that conclusion based on your mental state, constitution, and capabilities.

The solution is to want something more. That's it. It all comes from our desires and needs.

A huge number of young men seem to feel like you. Probably the result of overstimulation through fast food, binge drinking, porn addiction, and instant 24 hour gratification of your curiosity.

Because he didn't

Man up. Join the military or at least work. Or just push yourself really hard at whatever you do. constant motion is the answer. You're an animal, you're happier when you do human animal things like move, love, hate, work. Just do more shit.

>Join the military or at least work
This could be the worst advice I've ever read here. You legitimately sound like a retarded person.

>according to categories of pure fiction like aim, unity, or beingness, is the cause of passive nihilism
Saying these are fictions is the definition of nihilism

>a retrogression

Yeah, Nietzsche, like all 19th Century German philosophers save based Schop, bought the idea of "current year" hook, line and sinker, and waxed about the coming age when their philosophy would be fulfilled. Something Nietzsche, ultimately, through intermediaries, pirated from Christianity.

>Saying these are fictions is the definition of nihilism
How do you figure?

Human beings a clearly wholey distinct from animals user. Every single time you liken the human experience to animalistic urges you're just advocating for a degradation of the human identity.

Presuming we're using Nietzsche as an authority

>Presupposition of this hypothesis: that there is no truth, that there is no absolute nature of things nor a "thing-in-itself." This, too, is merely nihilism-even the most extreme nihilism. It places the value of things precisely in the lack of any reality corresponding to these values and in their being merely a symptom of strength on the part of the value-positers, a simplification for the sake of life.

nice trip.

I didn't say there's no truth though... or no absolute nature of things. The absolute nature of things is, in fact, non-absolute. The truth is that those are fictional categories (or at any rate, it is more truthful than those categories themselves).

When you say there is no "being", I am presuming you mean no "thing-in-itself", since "being" is used synonymously with that by all German idealists after Kant.

one needs to work to sustain himself.

>If you don't want to be reborn, then just die and stay dead, or become a whiner. Your choice.
what is this gibberish.

nirvana is the only way to escape the cycle of suffering, so "following the eightfold path" does not mean you're free from suffering.

Yes, that is what beingness meant there.

However, some things to consider:

1. That passage you quoted was from scattered notebooks of Nietzsche, not published. While I recall a similar passage in Will to Power, that also contains some unfinished work.

2. When I say that there is no thing-in-itself, because I share Nietzsche's Yes-saying outlook, it is not the same as when an absolutist says it. This is the same with Nietzsche. When I say there is no beingness, no thing-in-itself, this is not an absolute statement, but an interpretation.

3. It would be passive nihilism and almost ressentiment if the denial of the concept was at the forefront, but it isn't here. I deny the concept, in favor of superior ones; the latter are at the forefront. Similarly to the later Nietzsche, who began flinging his No's around everywhere, after having reached the point of understanding that an eternal Yes-saying requires a powerful No-saying, and that one must say Yes to saying No, too.

>1. That passage you quoted was from scattered notebooks of Nietzsche, not published. While I recall a similar passage in Will to Power, that also contains some unfinished work.
It's not just some random note Nietzsche scribbled as it occurred to him, though, it's a quote from a large draft of continuous exposition.

>When I say there is no beingness, no thing-in-itself, this is not an absolute statement, but an interpretation.
It you're appealing solely to relativism, this can go nowhere. There's no point in debating this. You are taking the view of a transsexual and applying it to all of reality.

> I deny the concept, in favor of superior ones
"Superior" here is completely meaningless. In your framework, it just means, "What I prefer" and literally nothing more. What is actually superior interests me. What you prefer does not unless it coincides with it, and when you definition superior solely and purely as "whatever I prefer", then your conception has zero value to mean.

>an eternal Yes-saying requires a powerful No-saying, and that one must say Yes to saying No, too.
Hence
>as Father Seraphim Rose showed, nihilism is like a virus: it just forms a dialectic with Nietzsche, and sublates him, making it stronger.
Nietzsche tries to counter nihilism by an affirmative which merely becomes a very strong, affirmative version of nihilism. Nothing has any value of itself anymore, things are valued according to life-affirmation (excitement), and we see what happens when this is applied to art: art can no longer be valued for itself, only for how "avant-garde" it is.

>that one must say Yes to saying No, too.
You must also remember that a positive times a negative is still a negative.

DO NOT DARE

>It's not just some random note Nietzsche scribbled as it occurred to him, though, it's a quote from a large draft of continuous exposition.
It's a note he nonetheless never officially published, but my point is that there is more to this full picture that is Nietzsche, and being an unpublished note makes it more difficult to trace where in that picture the fragment is meant to fit.

Pic related are other unpublished notes of his. In 10[202] he calls the thing-in-itself an absurdity, since stripping a thing of all its attributes, which includes its relationships, changes what the thing is — but he says thingness is a fiction created by us for the purpose of logic and communication. He doesn't say, "don't think of things-in-themselves any more," but simply points out that it is a fiction with a purpose. In 5[14] he makes an interesting point that science and logic has actually fictionalized more of the world than it made into possible knowledge. 9[35] and 9[91] is the full crash course on this subject, with 11[72] a preview of his ultimate conclusion and goal.

1/2

>Nietzsche tries to counter nihilism by an affirmative which merely becomes a very strong, affirmative version of nihilism. Nothing has any value of itself anymore, things are valued according to life-affirmation (excitement)
If you read over 9[35] and 9[91] more, Nietzsche does not end on active nihilism... active nihilism is an intermediate state either characteristic of decadence that is still hesitating or of productive forces that are not yet strong enough to invent the resources it needs. These combined notes, to me, say that the entire process of God's death -> nihilism -> post-nihilism is this:

+ Once, God was found to be true. There was aim, unity, and beingness (thingness).
+ The development of science fictionalized God, and fictionalized aim, unity, and beingness.
+ This fictionalization leads to a sovereign ignorance, a weakening of the appropriating force, which is nihilism — "knowledge" itself is a fiction now.
+ Active nihilism is when the appropriating force becomes strong enough to reinvent meaning for itself. It is destructive AND creative, but it still sees fiction as it seeks to triumph over its passive nihilism. Aim is still a thingness to it, because the world of thingness, as faint as it now is, continues to linger behind.
+ The philosophy that comes after meaning has been reinvented, the philosophy inherited by the next generation, the generation that no longer has to reinvent meaning but can now live by the meaning created by the past reinventors (which was designed in alignment with becomingness), is no longer nihilistic. It does not see fiction anymore. It believes fully in itself and what it does.

>we see what happens when this is applied to art: art can no longer be valued for itself, only for how "avant-garde" it is.
The avant-garde, abstract, all that nonsense is not characteristic of the final stage above, Nietzsche's philosophy. It's characteristic of the intermediate state, active nihilism, in its DECADENT form. Art, when Nietzsche's endgame philosophy is applied, becomes immersion, as we see in Alex Kierkegaard, whose philosophy is Nietzsche's endgame in full active form.

Also, see my post in this other thread , it's relevant here. Interestingly enough, Nietzsche's endgame shares some properties when observed from an outsider perspective, or the mediocre ones, with Christ's. Your Father Seraphim Rose guy is picking up on that, I think, without acknowledging that Christianity has that quality too.

I don't need meaning when I'm feeling good

>how does anyone go through those three authors and come out a nihilist
Easily: reading whilst not having the opportunities to have a good life like they did.

So essentially, reading people whose works were not meant for that reader.

>Dostoevsky
>nihilism

One recognises that there are subjectively better ways of being than others, certainly for oneself and next to certainly for everyone else and one makes an effort to take responsibility to change things in relation to this. Fairly simple in terms of logic. It's just hard in terms of making the effort which is the real problem 99% of you likely have

>Claims to be a nihilist
>Wants to overcome nihilism

You haven't shed the spooks just yet, kid.

Why do people treat nihilism like something unideal, to be overcome?

I find the opposite to be far worse. Let's say life does have a 'meaning' or a 'purpose' - all that does is impose lifelong duties upon you. Why would anyone want that sort of pressure?

Unless they're so weak that they can't apply any sort of direction on their lives, and need it to come from without; or, require direction at all.

There is no such thing as life without direction. Aimlessness is death. An organism ceases when the parts of it can no longer move together.

>There is no such thing as life without direction. Aimlessness is death.

Spoken like a true drone.

Read Laozi.

People who are most satisfied with life are those who feel a sense of purpose in what they're doing even if it's hard.
That's one of the conditions to get people into flow state which is apparently one of the best states of being possible minus drugs etc.

Whereas purposelessness in everything is unbearable and not a way of being that anyone can truly embody with any fullness

Laozi doesn't advocate aimlessness

>satisfaction
>purpose

His entire philosophy is basically taking whatever shit comes your way, good or bad.

Start using psychedelics?

Don't be stupid and take a large dosis the first time, start low and increment with small amounts on subsequent trips.

Don't even know what you're trying to say

Almost like that's an aim or something

I'm saying that you're dealing in spooks, and I'm telling you to stop.

Maybe one more attempt and you'll get to the courage to make a reply not hidden behind memes. Not optimistic tb h

>So essentially, reading people whose works were not meant for that reader.
Pretty much, they were all meant for the upper class who can afford to do whatever they want with their life. Unfortunately the more intelligent members of the underclass read that shit too and it fucks up their lives even worse.

Stop being retarded and then read Nietzsche again.

Probably bait, but w/e.

Real existential threats and more doubt in your understanding of reality. You don't ''have'' to do anything that you criticized nignog. Figure out what to do, introspection and all that goofy shit.

>Why would anyone want that sort of pressure?
It's not "pressure" to strong healthy types who have an innate sense of self-worth and ambition.

inb4
>define "strong healthy types"
Just look at Greek mythology. Practically every fucking entity is a good example, and none of them question their life's meaning or purpose, or feel burdened by their own ambitions — they are just purely ambitious and passionate.

I guess personality

I've read the same authors you have, only that I can't remain nihilistic when the entire world is crumbling all around me. I take actions, hoping the moment of now is not eternal.

>Still ascribing your world views and philosophies to fucking Nietzsche

Just
Give
Up

I don't get how le fruit virgin wasn't a nihilist, if you believe nihilism is essentially true but say 'make your own values' as a response, you're still a nihilist

Okay. Okay. First of all, how does one sincerely become a nihilist or an atheist after reading Nietzsche? Do you not comprehend that he repeatedly alluded to his writings NOT being for the common man? His works are meant for the Ubermensch, the over-man, and that does not signify anyone who picks them up, let alone able to understand them. Second of all, he leaves out the answers to becoming that superior being. His philosophy analyzes the degeneration of the Western world, and in no way should be taken as a guide-line to combat the decline. When he says: "everything of today; it falleth, it decayeth. Who would preserve it? But I-I also wish to push it", he refers to that timely aphorism all things come to an end. Our decline is inevitable, but one should not lament over it. On the contrary, celebrate and revel in the ruins perpetuated by an inevitable destruction. Yes, perhaps the average reader will capitulate: I will die out as a race. However, an Ubermensch comes to the realization that old ideals could be revived, and, consequentially, that survival overwhelms him to the point he is neither moved nor tormented by anything but those ideals. He laments over the fact that those ideals are unattainable, yet he spiritually persists for he acknowledges that evolutionary spark igniting throughout his soul. He will never obtain superiority, but his kin, God help them, will.

You misunderstand his point. He does not claim for the Ubermensch to 'make up their own virtues'. Instead, they should find whatever existing remnants of European values and tradition to build on them.

>hidden behind memes

Memes are the light that illuminate the path to immortality.

*farts*
*wipes it on your shirt*

It is a long path, for sure.

i told myself i'd never take antidepressants because they'll ruin my creativity, but i haven't had the motivation to do anything in a long time. there really isn't any point in fighting anymore, i'm fucked either way.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Plato's Symposium, & Republic

but what am i supposed to want? the only thing that seems worth fighting for is financial self-sufficiency, so i don't have to spend my time doing something i don't want to do in order to make money, but then what? what am i supposed to do with my time when i get there?

i'm not saying i can't think of anything, i could try to write a novel, i could read as many books as i can, i could go get laid as much as possible, i could try to start a family, i could try to get into the film industry, i could try to become a therapist, but it all seems completely pointless. i feel like every time i've told myself there's something i want to do with my life, i've just been lying to myself.

>muh father seraphim rose.

fuck off.

Mention one person who has achieved Buddhism's ultimate goal (nirvana).
Hard mode: case confirmed by evidence. Buddha doesn't count because his story is only backed up by anecdotal evidence.

the most reddit-tier post I've ever seen on this board

>motivation
Worthless. If you don't feel like you must write, if there is no feeling of necessity, give up.

edgy

>but what am i supposed to want? the only thing that seems worth fighting for is financial self-sufficiency, so i don't have to spend my time doing something i don't want to do in order to make money, but then what? what am i supposed to do with my time when i get there?
You'll never get there anyway. You're supposed to just add expenses until you have to work more and more and become a better and better drone.

luckily i don't really want any possessions either. all i buy is books.

Just as atheism is a negation of God, so is nihilism a negation of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
Just as atheism is often the result of being unable to reconcile the evil in the world with its Creator, so is nihilism the result of a mind unable to reconcile the evil, falsehood, and ugliness in the world with the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
Plato remarks in the Phaedo that it is dangerous for a young man to engage in philosophy, because in philosophising is sure to see many false positions refuted, and being young and eager to find the truth, if he finds only refutation and refutation, he may arrive at the notion that there is no truth whatsoever, and that reason itself is useless. Indeed, nihilism is found especially among the young today, and especially among the young who have engaged a little in philosophy. Today, there is a failure to pass on morals to children and to provide them with a justification to persevere in attaining the Good amidst so much evil, in pursuing the Truth among so much falsehood, in obtaining the Beautiful despite such prevailing ugliness; instead, children are encouraged to "seek their own values", which leaves them with the task of philosophising at a very young age. Most children, without any parent or teacher to give them morals, will simply adopt the morals of their fellow children; more thoughtful children will try to discover their own morals, which is a highly dangerous task which may lead to virtue or to extreme vice.
As modern society encourages the toleration of all points of view, the child is most likely to uncritically adopt a moral relativist position early on; in his society he sees people from many different religions, nations, ethnicities, etc., and he will try to reconcile these by saying that what is good and what is true is a matter of opinion up to an individual or to a group. He will adopt this relativist position perhaps even before he has began to read a single word of the philosophers, but if he begins philosophy with the modern writers he will typically find a justification for his opinion. If he reads the Greeks, particularly Plato and Aristotle, he will be tempted to read them only out of curiosity, and see them only as a stepping stone to the modern philosophy which has already come to espouse; he will not seriously consider their positions, and perhaps even fail to see that they argue against the position which he holds. He does not yet have anything of the spirit of Socrates, of the philosopher, who distrusts his own mind, and seeks the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, with untiring effort; instead, he is eager to arrive at the truth early and imagine that he has already found it, and the ease by which he found the truth he attributes to his superior intelligence.

And yet, its all we have to validate our sensory experience and the world around us. We could go the Buddhist route of "fuck it, karma" and hope when we die life doesn't suck as much, but that holds little comfort for who you are now.