One Nihilist's Take On "The Meaning Of Life"

As most of my readers know, I suffer from severe depression. I frequently have thoughts of suicide. Dealing with thoughts of suicide, even if you don't plan on acting upon them, you just simply have the thoughts in your head, sort of inevitably forces you to ponder whether there's any meaning or purpose or point to life. It is the core question one faces. If a profoundly nihilistic individual was faced with thoughts of suicide and came to the conclusion that there was absolutely no hope of any meaning, there might very well be one less person walking around. But suicidally depressed people carry on all the time, as do nihilists, living life while in the midst of doubting that it is worth anything.

I was contemplating suicide, not actually doing it but having rather obsessive thoughts about it, last night. I came to the conclusion that I couldn't go through with it. This conclusion did not come from a fear of death. It did not come from concern over what it might do to those who love me. It arose, in the most bizarre fashion, from the fact that I simply felt I had to know what was going to happen in the future in Doctor Who. Yes. A nerdy sci-fi show is keeping me from ending it all. Trivial? Perhaps. But it points to something larger. Life has any meaning that you give it. The ultimate question of existence, "What is the meaning of life?" can be summed up quite simply as, "Whatever you find the meaning in." This accounts for the wide range of religions and politics and subcultures and national identities and people with mundane, hateful jobs that they go to day after day dreading. It accounts for every single person who has ever lived or ever will live. Even the suicide finds some glimmer of meaning in death. We don't have to examine the cosmos or 1000 page philosophical or theological tomes to discover the meaning of life. We just have to look at ourselves and our thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Those are the meaning of life for us.

The meaning of life is as unique and individual as a fingerprint. No two are exactly alike. And the meaning of life is not always something positive either. Since he's in the news so much lately, take Bin Laden as an example. His life had a meaning. It was a meaning that made it a good call on our part to kill him. But it was still a meaning. He believed in it. Other people's meanings were to cut short his meaning. They did so. And on it goes. One person's meaning may conflict with another person's. My meaning would conflict with someone's who was trying to convert me to be a Southern Baptist. But there are parts of my meaning that make it possible for me to be friends with people who are Southern Baptist and parts of their meaning allowing them to be friends with me.

Saying life has a meaning is not necessarily anti-nihilist. As a matter of fact, it is profoundly nihilist when one considers the fact that I consider the meaning of life to be an arbitrary conglomeration of loves and hates, pleasures and aversions, joys and sufferings in a person's life. It is outside the bounds of almost every orthodox religion and also beyond pure solipsism to say that we are the meaning of our lives. Religion would have it that some other being or beings are the meaning. Solipsism would lock that meaning up inside the individual's head. For me, my devotion to seeing more Doctor Who was an acknowledgement that there was something outside myself that had meaning. But that meaning belongs to me. So it is neither solipsistic or transcendent. For some people, God is the meaning of their life. This seems to make the meaning something transcendent. But really, the meaning for them is in the immanence. The relationship they cultivate with God. The mind can't grasp something eternally transcendent and beyond all human notions of being. So it relies instead of following a given deity's laws or prayer or worship. The meaning is still within the person. If it were an absolute meaning, everyone would find their meaning in that. But as I stated before, to a suicide, death can be a meaning. We may not agree with everyone's chosen meaning(s) but we should at least try to understand that for that individual, no matter how dreadful their actions may be, that person they are is the meaning of their life. It can be a terrible thing, this meaning of life. It can also be glorious. It can also be a nerdy sci-fi show. It is complex and ever changing. But it is our own, each of us owns our own meaning. Even if your meaning is like my nihilistic, severely depressed meaning, you will save yourself a lot of grief wondering "Why?" if you just embrace your meaning of life as simply the person you are.