The Abyss of Nihilism

This one's depressing.

The Abyss

You will die. Even if cryogenics or agelessness are discovered tomorrow, you will, in the end, die. So will everyone you know.

Every idea you've ever had, every mark you've made on the world, everything you've ever created or touched or moved will be undone, given long enough.

The earth will be consumed by the sun.

The universe will wind down, one way or another. Entropy will increase until heat death, or the universe will collapse back into the formless point mass it existed in before the big bang, or reality will fray apart, or the simulation will come to a close. No matter what precise theory you hold to, our reality will not last forever.

In the end, not even going down in history will mean anything, because history itself will end.

So what's the point of living - of striving, doing, achieving - anything?

If the end state of the universe is unchanged by your actions, whatever they may be, then can you not be said to have accomplished nothing, given a long enough perspective?

Why live at all, if life itself is just a temporary thing?

To matter is to affect the outcome, to have changed something. To matter is for things (the state of the universe) to be different because of choices you made. You matter because you change the world around you through your existence.

But nothing you do affects the end state of Creation. Which means that none of your choices actually matter. Not to reality. The universe doesn’t care that you lived; it will be utterly unaffected by it once the last star goes out.

This realization is what I call the Abyss of Nihilism. Everyone gazes into it eventually.

And when the Abyss gazes back, as Nietzche said:

when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you

you need an answer for it, or it can swallow you whole.

Insane Aside

(Of course, ‘succumb to Nihilism’ is technically an answer to the Abyss, the same way that ‘jump off’ is an answer to a cliff. It’s just not an answer I, or most sane people, will accept.

Then there’s the ‘totally batshit insane’ response, courtesy of A Practical Guide to Evil:

“When the abyss stares back, wave. Offer refreshments. Being impolite to the abyss is never a good idea.”
-Dread Emperor Malevolent I, the Unhallowed

But I don’t recommend either response. For many reasons.)

Answer The Abyss

Denial

There are many answers people have come up with, over the centuries. The most popular is to deny the premise. Life isn't temporary, one argues, it's eternal - this temporary life is just a proving ground of sorts, to determine one's position in eternity.

When I confronted the Abyss, this answer did not satisfy me.

I could not bring myself to believe in the machinery of Heaven. A system of souls that endure beyond the body, where each soul is weighed and measured and an eternal seat assigned, never made much sense to me.

No, if the Abyss is to be answered, it can't be by denying that it exists.

Matter versus Meaning

The question then becomes: if nothing one does matters, in the end, how does one find meaning in their life? Humans want to matter, to believe that our existence affected the world, that our choices had genuine consequences, that we could have chosen otherwise, and things would be different.

Humans want to matter, but we need meaning in our lives. We normally think of meaning as existing as the tip of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - after all, lack of meaning won’t kill us as quickly as lack of air or water or food - but it will absolutely kill something inside of us. And without that something, that human spirit we speak of in simile and metaphor - well, there’s not much point to anything at all, is there?

Humans need meaning the same way we need air, water, and food, else something in us withers and dies.

So where can we find meaning?

It can't be found in what one accomplishes (because all accomplishments are meaningless, in the face of the heat death of the universe). A person can think they get meaning out of going down in history or writing a novel that gets studied for a thousand years, but a thousand years is a speck of dust in the eyes of the cosmos. Sooner or later the end comes, and everything is forgotten. There is no immortality, not in achievement nor work nor children, because nothing lasts forever.

If meaning can't be found in the destination, then the only other place to look is the journey.

If Meaning must be found (and it must be found, for humans need meaning like food, like water, like air), and there is none to find in the everlasting because nothing lasts forever, then it is to the ephemeral we must turn. The transient. The temporary.

Walking away from the Abyss without denying its existence is difficult, because the act demands that one find meaning in the everyday drudgery of life. Not every part of that everyday drudgery (there's little meaning to be had in brushing one's teeth), but some part.

Something temporary, passing, fleeting. Something that withers and decays and dies.

Ultimately, the question a person has to answer upon facing the Abyss is this: what in my life gives me meaning, even though it won’t matter in the end? What meaning can I find in the here and now, knowing that it won’t last forever?

Meaning in the Here and Now

I can’t answer this for you - this is the part of the journey that everyone does on their own. I can only speak to the journey I’ve gone on, and the answers I’ve found for myself.

The largest single answer I’ve come to is that ‘lastingness’, the quality measuring how long something endures, need not be a factor in how meaningful it is to me. Physical pleasure, emotional connection, and authentic expression may not last, but I can derive meaning from them while they exist. The fact that they will not exist in the future does not have to detract from their meaning in the present.

The next largest answer I’ve found is that looking for meaning in the grandiose is risky at best and futile at worst. I’ve always loved sweeping fantasies where heroes fight over the fates of millions, where nations and worlds and civilization itself are the stakes - but that’s pretty rare, here in real life. It happened during World War II, but that’s the only world-shaking battle in living memory. And even during WWII, how many people could be said to have materially changed the outcome personally? One hundred? One thousand?

People want a grand narrative to tie their work and their life to, the more existential the better. Climate Change, the housing crisis, the fertility crisis, AI, the death of democracy, liberalism vs. illiberalism: there is no shortage of causes nowadays that purport to be of paramount importance, but the truth of them is that a) the vast majority are not actually existential, even if they claim to be, and b) an individual person’s effect on such a large cause is minuscule at best, unless you happen to be a world-leader or top-tier researcher.

Instead, I’ve found it more fruitful to focus on my own personal relationships, which I can affect to a great degree. I focus on the small community around me, in extending empathy and compassion to those I care about. I concentrate on the occupation and hobbies that I find bring me joy.

I look for meaning in being better than my past self. I’ll never be the best at anything (so few people are, and even then someone will eventually do better than them), but I can climb my own personal mountain to new heights. I can set goals for myself and achieve them, learn and grow and reach higher and see further - even though I know the descent is inevitable.

I know my life will have a peak; all I can do is try to postpone it as long as possible.

The Abyss Always Wins

One can avert their eyes from the Abyss, can live their life without ever acknowledging it or pretending that it doesn’t exist.

This changes nothing.

The Abyss exists. It is there.

As Phillip K. Dick said:

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

The most meaningful life in existence still ends, and the corpse is unchanged by how meaningful the person who used to inhabit it found their life.

This is sad. This is tragic.

It’s the human condition - the condition of all those who are impermanent.

We walk our path, knowing that in the distance the Abyss awaits, yawning and gaping and insatiably hungry. I wish it were otherwise. It isn’t.