Why Nihilism is the Best Antidepressant
I’ve been reading as many books as possible on nihilism because I can’t help but think that I must be missing something. I’m by no means an expert on the philosophy of nihilism, but a crude explanation for the idea of nihilism is that nothing really matters all that much. This seems like an extremely depressing thought, but I’m telling you, the more I’ve come to learn how little everything matters, the freer I feel. I’m someone who was depressed, suicidal, and on a kamikaze mission with drugs and alcohol. Today, I’d challenge you to find someone happier than I am on a daily basis.
I’m not saying anything new, and I have some hope because I think more and more people are hopping on this bandwagon. Mark Manson wrote the best-selling book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. I’ve read the book twice, and although I don’t think he mentions nihilism once (he’s more of a fan of stoicism), this is basically what he’s preaching. And more recently, I read probably the best book on the topic, which was The Sunny Nihilist: A Declaration of the Pleasure of Pointlessness by Wendy Syfret.
Wendy does a far better job than I’ll do breaking down nihilism, but she has an excellent critique of the modern idea of what it means to be happy. We’re constantly surrounded by messages telling us we need to find meaning and purpose in everything. She has an excellent opening to the book where she tells a story about working in marketing where they were trying to brand an ice cream of giving you meaning and purpose.
One of the reasons we’re so depressed (aside from the major social issues in our world) is that we’re sold this idea that we need to be happy 24/7 and everything needs meaning. Our jobs need to have meaning and purpose. Our hobbies need to have meaning and purpose. Our interactions need to have meaning and purpose. And while there is some psychological research that backs some of this up, we need to find the balance of it all or we’re going to spiral into depression.
I found that one of the reasons I was so depressed was my insane attachments to everything. Learning about Buddhism, I learned about non-attachment, but nihilism helped solidify it by helping me realize that non-attachment is much easier when you realize what you’re attached to doesn’t mean all that much in the grand scheme of things.
I can’t tell you how much better my life got when I almost died from my drug addiction. I was trying to kill myself with drugs and alcohol, and when I got sober, I had congestive heart failure, and the doctors told me I probably wouldn’t survive the next year even if I got sober.
Ever since then, I have absolutely 0 time for bullshit in my life, and I wish that for everyone on earth. Not the addiction and almost dying thing, but having no time for bullshit.
Sure, people saying dumb stuff still irritates me, but I get over it within a short amount of time because I quickly realize that it doesn’t matter whatsoever. Life is to short to give meaning to every single interaction or dumb thing someone says. This is such a relief because the smallest thing used to completely ruin my day. But now that I’m living on borrowed time, I realize how little all of that matters.
It’s a cliche thing to say, but we literally are on this giant rock hurling through space. On this rock, there are over 7.6 billion other people, but we’re absolutely obsessed with ourselves and everything that happens in our lives on a daily basis. But in the grand scheme of things, how much does it all really matter? Yes, we’re living longer than ever before, but it’s still a small spec of time in the history of human evolution.
In 100 years, nobody is going to care about the trivial nonsense you stressed about on a daily basis, but we regularly let it rent real estate in our head and drive us nuts.
I could write an entire book about how not caring about so much has saved my mental health and my life. One of the best things I did was read a ton of books on success and luck, too. Once I realized that no matter how many people tell you they have some magical formula for success, it’s all BS. Most of the self-help and success books you read or influencers you follow are just selling you a false sense of control.
For example, right now, I’m diving back into books on marketing and just laughing half of the time because 90% of the stuff they’re talking about doesn’t matter. This book I’m reading on writing is talking about capturing the reader’s attention, structuring sentences, and marketing your writing. But do you have any idea how little all that matters? There are best-selling books and viral articles on a daily basis that are complete garbage indistinguishable from the next book or blog.
If there was any rhyme or reason to what makes something successful, we’d have a hell of a lot more billionaires and far less poverty in this world.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Depression is serious, and it comes with a lot of what comes along with nihilism. If you’ve ever been clinically depressed, you know what it feels like to believe that nothing matters and nothing you do matters. When it reaches the scary place of thinking you don’t even need to be alive, that’s when it’s time to seek professional help.
But for moderate depression, nihilistic thinking has prevented me from reaching that extremely dark place on many occasions.
When we’re depressed and anxious, we care so much about results or what people think of us. We don’t don’t take risks out of our fear of how people will judge us. We don’t feel motivated to take action because we fear failure. But when you realize the people judging you don’t matter and you failing doesn’t matter, you get a wonderful case of the “fuck its” and just start doing things. Then, this amazing thing happens where you build resilience and realize how much more you’re capable of.
And for anyone thinking nihilism means I don’t care about anything, you couldn’t be more wrong. I care about a lot of things. In fact, this morning, I got teary-eyed. I was going through my son’s old legos and thinking about how young he was when I bought them and how he’s a little man now. The same thing happened when we were moving and I was packing his room.
I care. I love. And I do my best to be as kind to people as possible. But this is one of the reasons I love Mark Manson’s book because it’s not about giving 0 fucks. It’s severely limiting your fucks and reserving them for the few things that matter. It’s basically de-cluttering your fucks and pulling a Marie Kondo.
So, if you’ve been finding yourself caring far too much about things that really don’t matter, I really hope this got through to you. I promise, if you start realizing how little so many things matter, life gets a whole lot better. Just get the stigma of nihilism out of your head, shift your perspective a little, and it’ll be an extremely freeing experience.
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