Is it possible to be a nihilist without becoming depressed and crippled by anxiety?

Naive idiots will say no but only because they're inexperienced and have uncritical minds
They totally mistake the possibility of being happy while ""Identifying"" as a nihilist with the possibility of being happy when fully grasping its implications on anything we derive happiness from

I'm glad you asked OP. I felt the same as you until I watched this short video

youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14

If nothing matters nothing can matter.
Simply declaring something as meaningful in that context is just arbitrary ape howling. Utterly fucking meaningless much less something we can speak of having a "" responsibility"" to do

imo a normal healthy human should be fine with being a nihilist.
We've developed structures for meaning and values on our brains so unless our brain cannot fulfil the requirements of these structures then becoming a nihilist would be like realising that money has no inherent value, i.e nothing.

reddit

You can have goals and wants you wish to fulfill without deluding yourself with existentialism.

I think the easiest way to explain is by example:

An existentialist/religious man becomes a doctor because he believes he found his purpose or that he was predetermined to become one. A nihilist man becomes a doctor because he wants to be a doctor, but he knows that he might as well work at McDonalds and that in the end, what he did or didn't do is meaningless.

And think of the path that leads to a hospital job: studying, apprenticeship, hard work. The existentialist wants to go through with it because he thinks he has a purpose, whereas the nihilist simply set a goal he wants to accomplish.

...

This is dumb because there is nothing in nihilism which suggests one to become a doctor.
If he wants to become a doctor he's not a true nihilist

The worst part is the complete dread you feel when you think about what happens when you die. Sure, you might not feel it for a while, but when you do, it's the worst feeling imaginable. It's as though everything around you has gone dark and the world wishes to crush you under its weight. I never get panic attacks, except when I think about death, and I don't think that feeling will ever go away.

I remember this feeling the first time I lost faith in God. It really unironically above all other suffering I ever felt, I'd literally go through torture to avoid being there again.
Its like you grasp the idea of youself being utterly and totally extinguished one day and its not merely a fear of that happening. Its like it burns back through time and just dissolves everything you are and ever did and ever could be. Then you're left with just this hammering dread, not that its going to happening but it already is happening, its all anything ever was

I don't even see how being a nihilist would cause those things

I'm an optimistic nihilist.

Wouldn't the nihilist regard nihilism to be a universal truth and not something which some people have and others don't, i.e you don't become a nihilist rather you acknowledge/realise that it is true?
It seems a bit pretentious to claim that the illusory system of values that all humans share is suddenly not a good enough motivator for the nihilist because a God doesn't personally preside over ensuring that they are meaningful.
Frankly I think the whole problem people have with nihilism is that they don't realise that we're all just animals without souls.

Except animals do not posess the ability to have self awareness on that fact, that is the categorical difference for why we call ourselves Homo Sapien (man the wise).
If you believe in these illusions you talk about, (and yeah following them while knowing they're illusions is still believing in them on some level) then you are not truly acting in the knowledge of nihilism
There is one value and its pleasure - pain. Everything else is nonsense to be ignored

>There is one value and its pleasure - pain. Everything else is nonsense to be ignored
But by your own words, you cannot be a nihilist if pleasure and pain is a motivation for your actions since as a nihilist you believe that there is no intrinsic value or meaning in anything, pleasure and pain included.
And don't get me wrong, I think pleasure and pain are the most pure forms of motivation we can have since they directly affect our brain through chemicals, but due to the complexity of our brains, more complex and seemingly 'meaningful', that is illusory, behaviours, values and desires have emerged.
>then you are not truly acting in the knowledge of nihilism
Nihilism is a fact to a nihilist, it's not some self-help 'philosophy' or 'way of life' that people adopt. Why do you treat it as such?
Are you actually a nihilist? Or are you trying to argue that nihilists don't actually exist by playing devils advocate?

you have to be willing to get happy over nothing.

>waa waa I believe I have faith in God because I'm scared

Yes, it's exactly how you described it. Not only are you going to perish completely one day, but you are doing so every single day. You constantly forget things that used to be important to you, you reinvent yourself according to the circumstances that arise, you think of a future that will still take you by surprise when it comes. "You" are not real in the way that you think about yourself. What you are is like a river that always flows on the same same course but still changes every second. That's why it's logically impossible to say that there can be an infinite life.

So stop crying about it and accept what you are. The anxiety you're talking about is not inborn in you, it's something that Christianity has planted in you. If you look at the world before and outside the influence of Christ you will see that people don't really believe in an afterlife. Nihilism is just the opposition to Christianity but if you stop looking at it like that then it becomes natural and logical.

So used to just going about my life I have to focus for awhile on the idea of my death for it become real to me. It really is the must crushing thing I can possibly imagine. I do it every so often for a reason I cant explain when the world doesn't feel real and I'm just staring outside at everything. I would honestly say I can vividly remember each time and what I was looking at. I wish so desperately I could believe in god and I have tried so hard but in my heart its all just a pathetic fraud that fills me with self loathing. When I look at myself I see nobody... I mean really I am no one. No personality no self... for years and years just pretending to be whoever I'm with. I want to cry thinking about how quickly and unconsciously I mimic phrases, gestures, posture, attitude. Maybe this is why friends feel so cold and alien to me, they're friends with whoever I pretend to be for them, there isn't even a real me for them to be friends with. My misery chases me even in sleep, where I am exposed and hated and chased by everyone. Only in art do I escape this suffering, but in a way I think it buries me deeper. Someone please please tell me what to do.

>>then you are not truly acting in the knowledge of nihilism
>Nihilism is a fact to a nihilist, it's not some self-help 'philosophy' or 'way of life' that people adopt. Why do you treat it as such?

I'm not, you're missing the point, if you don't act in according with nihilism as a fact then you are not a nihilist by not holding it as such. You can call yourself a nihilist and think you're a nihilist but if you don't follow logically from it then you're not

And what's natural and logical is a miserable meatgrinder where all relationships are merely that of domination and consumption. Where you are nothing but an eater one day and the eaten the next.
Christianity at least offers the hope of a possibility of identity and love, which I'll look towards before the banal ennui of suburban relinquishment

nihilism = no values, no meaning

depression, anxiety = negative value, bad meaning

one only become depressed precisely because one sees life as meaningful - meaningfully bad

You have probably realized that nothing matters, but you are still trying to live the life that social conventions taught you to.
At the end of the day, a lack of meaning gives no prescription. Your reaction shouldn't necessarily be depression or happiness, for there is no such thing as a rational reaction, and in fact even using the word "thing" is misleading.
Basically, you can choose how to react to this terrible truth.

read Nietzsche

The only logical reaction to nihilism is suicide. There is no point enduring the pain of life otherwise

There is no point in killing myself either. You're still operating on narratives, my almost-nihilist friend.

How should a nihilist act then in your view?
It seems to me that your nihilist cannot possibly exist because everything that he could ever do would be motivated by a belief in the value, intrinsic or not, of every possible action.
Trying to run away from somebody who was trying to kill him would show that he either places value in his life or value in avoiding pain. Suicide would show that he is motivated through placing value in his potential future pain.

>if you don't act in according with nihilism
>as a fact then
>You can call yourself a nihilist and think you're a nihilist but if you don't follow logically from it then you're not
>Follow logically

I've never stirnerposted before, but I really have to say it: you are spooked, my friend.

Literally saying nothing

Fine, at that point you would simply sit and do nothing until eventually you die of dehydration like Jainist

I've never understood this. How can people believe something just because it makes them feel better? Doesn't it feel fake at times?

You're trying to be a nihilist while pretending that a course of action is logical and the other isn't.
For example
>at that point you would simply sit and do nothing until eventually you die of dehydration like Jainist
I could do the opposite. I still have a will, the fact that is not grounded in anything does not mean that inactivity is the obvious conclusion.

Again, it's all narratives about how you (or that guy, I don't know who I am responsing too) think that a nihilist should behave. Of course, as you can see, this narrative is in itself meaningless. You might choose to follow it, but it's by no mean the "logical conclusion" of nihilism (as if any such thing could exist).

Because the question becomes why?
What is your motivation? There is no such thing as action without motivation
There is no meaning in inaction but there doesn't need to be because its not predicated by any motivation but merely the void of motivation itself

It doesn't feel fake because what is the alternative I'm being offered?
All I know is perhaps Christianity is true, in total or it contains a path to truth and we simply need to learn how to logically constitute it to ourselves. I don't know the ends of all knowledge but what I do know is nihilism is a straight path to death and Christ offers life

you don't seem to be grasping the notion
that doing nothing is about as equally viable as conquering the western world , taking a shit, or smacking a womans ass.

when you say "might as well do nothing and die" you are placing a value judgement on doing nothing becuase it is the easiest for you to do than anything else.
When in reality everything is just as easy to do, if you think about it long enough.

this is the challenge you must over come.

you maybe motivated to become a doctor, but the end result of that motivation is a high score in donkey kong. you have to learn to sublimate your motivations; like pedophiles do.

Nothing doesn't demand viability though. That's the point and the nature of nothing
Nothing begets nothing

I'm the guy you were replying to. is someone else. Sorry if I'll use the word ''spooks'' multiple time, but it fits.
>Because the question becomes why?
If you accept that life has no meaning, no possible answer can be found for such a question.
>What is your motivation? There is no such thing as action without motivation
Double spook. First of all, you imply that every action has to be preceded by a motivation. This is not true. The Death of Ivan'Illic is a good book to understand what a conscious choice actually is, and how one can act for an entire life without ever thinking about why he is doing what he is doing.
The second spook is this: you are implying that every motivation has to be rational. So I'll ask you this: why do I like to play the piano? Why do I like to swim? The answer is tautological: because I like to do these things. No epistemological framework is needed to justify a passion.
For example, to the user that implied that nihilism should lead to nihilism I could simply answer: I'd rather live.

Nihilism should prevent you from that shit actually. So it's more likely that you're just some depressed angsty fag who uses nihilism as justification.

If nothing matters, what do be depressed and anxious about? Specially anxiety usually comes from fear of negative consequences but if nothing matters, how can there be negative consequences?

>pain of life
>in the first world
Hahaha. Congratulation on managing to find a way to fail the game on easy mode with cheats.

>why do I like to play the piano? Why do I like to swim?
Dat shit releases hormones that make you feel going doing it.

You're talking about goals not motivations, again why be motivated towards any of those things?

Then virtually every action has a motivation.

White people feel more pain than third worlders, same way animals and bacteria aren't capable of the suffering humans are

Then I'll expand the question: why do I like the effect of these biochemical reactions? Again, the answer is: because I like them. I may be designed to like them, but this is not the point, for these psychic phenomena are still part of my experience

>Then virtually every action has a motivation

No shit. Action presupposes motivation

Nah, you're just a spoiled NEET.

Whatever you say Pajeet, isn't there a street you should be shitting in?

I don't understand your post.

if nihilism is true then everything is just as viable as nothing.
there is no better or worse or even a notion of difference.

there is no basis to make any sort of decision. so making a deicions doesn't make any sense.
you you make a decision that doesn't make sense.

instead of
oh nihilisim is true
might as well do nothing becuase that makes the most sense.

Pretty much, although motivation seems like a suboptimal word.

Even if we run along with this idiocy, there are still fuckloads of ways open to everyone in the first world to overcome muh pain and drown in pleasure. You get everything handled to you, it takes some effort or extremely shitty chance (accidents, disease, etc) to be miserable in the first world.

But you don't like them. The biological reactions are you.

Im saying that your "intentieons" or motivations are only one part of the ethic of deicions making.

rememeber there is also means , and ends as well.

when you are a nihilist you approach motivation similar to that of a cuckold.
except you're not as sado-masochistic.
and you probably have a better sense of humor.

>But you don't like them. The biological reactions are you.
The point is that the result is that I play the piano due to them. This process is independent of wether I'm a nihilist or not.

>so making a deicions doesn't make any sense.

Exactly, so there's no point in making one which consequently leads to doing nothing

There's no point in making no choices either.

Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah but that doesn't matter because you don't need a motivation to do nothing

>any way the wind bloooooooows
>*gentle symbol crash*

Then I've disproven your first point, which was that nihilism's logical consequece is inactivity, depression and, ultimately, suicide.

Having access to those pleasures just reveals how hallow and pointless they are. Third worlders still have hope of reaching a happy fulfilling life, Paradise seems real to them. When you're on the top and realize you're still in hell that's the ultimate horror

You're confusing two different posters. I brought up inactivity only to address the possibility of action when the pleasure principal itself is disregarded

>arbitrary ape howling
Exactly. That's the fun part: you get to be the ape howling.

Go ahead, but its not meaning

Oh, I am not the guy you was arguing with, just butted in.

> just reveals how hallow and pointless they are
So what? Jerking off is still pleasurable, whether there is a point or not.

>When you're on the top and realize you're still in hell that's the ultimate horror
But user, there is no hell nor top. Just couple years of meaningless existence, which you can just as well enjoy.

>the purpose is to find the purpose

I'm saying its not enjoyable though. I don't even enjoy jerking off anymore, its just become a biological burden like shitting but without a feeling of satisfaction at the end

What did he mean by this?

Then don't jerk off.
What's your point? Are you incapable of finding joy in life? If this is the case, is it caused by some of your behaviours and choices, and can they be fixed?
Chances are that your problem is not existential in nature, rather, just like almost everyone else on Veeky Forums, your life is actually a mess that needs to be fixed. It's either that or you've got clinical depression.

How is shitting not enjoyable? Even simple stuff like drinking water when you're thirsty is absolutely fucking enjoyable. Don't drink anything for 12-24h and tell me again how it's not incredible pleasurable to have some water.

You just willingly numbed yourself with overexposure of pleasure.

It's physically impossible to be a true nihilist, you have baseline biology that you can't control and the fact that you are actually an individual with a perspective, to contend with. While denying the concept is even worse, I would say pursuing it too avidly is a mental dead-end. Use the powerful mode of thought an inkling of it can give you, but don't be subjugated.

i don't know if you are the same person that says
motivation presupposes action
and that we all get brain juice as our rewards for doing said actions

then I don't understand why you rely so heavily on "doing nothing"
have you every tried "doing nothing?"

becuase when you are doing nothing you are
1)fooling yourself that your mind is not busy or atleast in meditation
2)letting you body engage in so many automatic processes you have no control over yourself.

it is impossible to do nothing.
becuase at the very least you exist at least in your own subjective world.

Nihilism is a fact and acting in accordance to your intrinsically meaningless value systems is not contrary to being a nihilist because as you say we have a baseline biology. This is obviously irrational and if we were minds floating in space it wouldn't be in accordance with nihilism but we aren't.
If nihilism isn't a fact explain how you can arrive at intrinsically meaningful things without God?

Some Jainists literally did sit absently to death. Its impossible short of death to inactivate your mind of course but you can strive to reach the closest point where action is concerned

You have to realize that whatever you do, it's part of your life. I can't really help you, and I can't even tell you this is the right thing to do, but I can try. When you will realize that all the pain you're feeling is only in your head and, really, you can be whatever you want, then, I hope, you'll be free from your dread. Maybe you think that there are no good things in life. That's not true. There are things, and humans say if they're good or bad. You get to decide conciously what is good for you and just do it. Remember that whoever you are, whatever you did, will do, are doing, it's a part of capital "L" Life, and it's beautiful.

The conclusion of the thread is every single action is a leap of faith and greatest faith is in the God who died on the Cross
Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ

I can tell you two things:
>If something makes you feel better, that isn't necessarily the truth.
>You can love and have an identity even if you don't believe in a religion. All the world's a game with rules, the rules were written by men. Good things exist, we build them every day.
This really sounds like some self-help bullshit (and it is), but I think you could think about it

I'm afraid you don't understand what Nihilism is about. I suggest you to read Nietzsche: The Gay Science (hahaha GAY) and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. These book are filled with happiness and satisfaction. In Nihilism life has only the meaning you see in it. So, if you see existence as pain, you can change that point of view and become the Overman

>>If something makes you feel better, that isn't necessarily the truth.
>>You can love and have an identity even if you don't believe in a religion.

Notice a contradiction between these two?
All you're proposing is replacing Christ with a secular humanism pseudo-religion which is far more naive and unconsidered. God and salvation can at least be contemplated as imaginable, your faith is baseless in any universe

>If nihilism isn't a fact explain how you can arrive at intrinsically meaningful things without God?
you can't lel
so now what, hmm? where do you go from here? or are we just going to sit here and die, thoughts never leaving the cage you've put us in?

>nihilism is a straight path to death
Uhhh... what about no

>Why don't you go read Nietzsche !

Not an argument

Ok, I'll try this the hard way.
GET OUT of your room, you fairy, you don't need no motivation, all you need to do is follow the Will to Power, ask no questions and fuck her right in tha pussy

Just out of curiosity, have you ever felt happy at least once in your life?

Things can matter if you decide they matter. If you are not a Nihilist and you are, put the case, a Christian, there's a God (represented on Earth by the ape called Pope Francis) who tells you what are the things in life that have a meaning. In Nihilism, like ol'Friedrich would say, you get to be your own God

Starving yourself to death is just another decision. A decision needs to have a motivation. Checkmate?
>But my existential dread, my fear
To fear the existence is a decision

If you read the FULL POST you would have seen my argument. Are you dumb?

Shit I replied to my own post. This () was actually an answer to

No starving to death just happened to be the consequence of doing nothing. If humans were immortal you would not starve and instead just be there. You're mistaking environment contingency with willful end

In fact my faith is baseless. It's all about not searching for a base and enjoy the ride, can't you see? We (as individuals and society) decide what is good and what is bad. It's all a game WE created, whithout any base. Do what you like. I don't want to sound like some shitty carachter from Rick and Morty, but really, if it's possible for the human being to have fun at least once, we don't need any base for this.

Doing nothing until you starve to death requires incredible discipline. It's not something you just do when you're sad.

Doing nothing is a decision

I agree but this was all in response to someone saying being a hedonist is believing in meaning.
I think the true nihilist is either a hikomorri or a mind numbed wageslave.
Whatever it is for you to lie most flat on the water

Ok enjoy your fun reddit, I'll be busy looking for salvation