I never expected to inch toward nihilism. For years, absurdism kept me afloat. Camus’ defiance in the face of meaninglessness, the idea that you can laugh at the chaos even when it’s crushing you. That you can push the boulder up the hill again and again and still find joy — or at least rebellion — in the act.
But lately, I’ve been staring at that hill and wondering if it’s even worth approaching anymore.
The world feels like it’s daring us to stop believing. The U.S. is caught in a feedback loop of delusion and decay. Billionaires play empire while the rest of us drown in rent, debt, heatwaves, and endless headlines. Climate collapse isn’t creeping anymore; it’s sprinting. The political system’s not broken, it’s working exactly as designed to protect capital and crush dissent. The cruelty isn’t a glitch; it’s a feature.
I used to think absurdism gave me a way through it; that laughing at the system, mocking it, refusing to surrender meaning to it, was a form of resistance. And maybe it still is. But there’s a point where the laugh feels hollow. Where the defiance feels like theater, and the audience left the building years ago.
I’m not fully gone. Not yet. There’s still a part of me that wants to spit in the face of despair and dare it to flinch. That wants to imagine Sisyphus happy, even if only out of spite.
But I’d be lying if I said nihilism isn’t whispering louder lately. Not the cartoon nihilism that gets misrepresented — not the “nothing matters so do whatever” kind — but the cold, empty realization that maybe there really is no justice coming. No redemption arc. No meaning to extract or invent. Just survival, until we can’t anymore.
I don’t know if this shift is a phase, a spiral, or a new state of being. But I know I’m not alone in feeling it. The world is making nihilists faster than it makes meaning.
And maybe admitting that — even tentatively — is the first honest thing I’ve done in a while.
Sisyphus Shrugged 
It’s difficult for me to put this into succinct words, I’ve never really had what you would fail faith, so I don’t really know what it is like for that feeling to diminish or fade. I’ve mostly hovered between absurdist and Nihilist even before I knew what they meant. People who have had a spiritual upbringing and those who haven’t find it difficult, I think to relate their experience of reasons to exist or sense of purpose maybe?
For a non-deist the human struggle is, I think the path from instinct to reason. If I gather all the information from good and bad how do I choose to live my life? There is a gratification that comes from being an arsehole that you either run with or you take the slower path, though probably longer to get to where you want in life. What I am saying is that there have been millennia of theology in all it’s myriad expressions to get to the modern take.
Things like Nihilism are relatively new, more seeds than trees, it’s difficult to use them as a framework for a person’s life because they’ve been – for a lack of a better word – demonised. For a long time I was an Optimistic Nihilist, for me, having the history I do that made the most amount of sense.
The darker side of Nihilism has it’s attraction, but it always felt like a surrender, and maybe a step towards a kind of dogma, which is contradictory but I think if something takes the direction from you and leads you, then is it your path? I am more attracted to the make your own way, die on your feet thing, maybe also because I’ve spend a lot of time on my knees too, that’s a consideration.
Again – personal opinion – Most people like to buy the package deal, the full cover, top tier theology, this is for a few reasons, most people don’t like to think too much – as you’ve shown it’s a rough pecker that. Others want to be on the winning side, it’s a social/political me too thing, that’s where I see our friends kneeling in front of Clyde. Some are full of despair and can’t decide where or what is real, and more importantly how can they find the meaning to make their life worthwhile. Meaning is a personal thing, meaning is a multidimensional polytope with no clear measure or satisfying formula.
One thing Maths/Physics failed to deliver and paradoxically did for me was that there is much, much, much more than we can possibly grasp. It takes courage to stare into things too vast for you to reckon with a brief answer. That’s what life is in essence, you stare into the eternity/beast/coldness and look both at the immense and the quantum. It’s not easy, it’s not a cheap thing, it takes the entirety of your path through your life or it can be – from what I have seen – a revelation.
I am not a philosopher, I don’t have big answers, the more I learned at uni the more I realised I needed to learn. Even more disproportionate mysteries confront us than an ant standing on a tree looking out to an endless forest because as our intelligence and knowledge matures the more we realise our horizon extends further.
That appals some people, but it appeals to me, there are wonders, pleasures, satisfactions and answers to things out there, these compensate us for tragedy, adversity and disaster. An intrinsic element to being human is the struggle with purpose and overcoming the difficulty required in building your path through all this.
You’ve noticed but being female in this world is a prick of a job, but it’s a lot better than it was in the past. For many reasons, this is, I think why you’ll find many more women vote liberal, there are plusses for being a conservative woman but those are only if you like babies and despise making your own path through life.
You’re a smart guy, you’ll be able to decode all that ramble. We all feel bleak sometimes especially if we’ve decided to do something about it.
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I appreciate the attempt to reach through the void with a bit of hope and metaphor. I’ve stared into the forest too, and yeah—sometimes it’s wonder, sometimes it’s just trees. I think what I’m wrestling with isn’t a lack of beauty but the weight of being conscious in spite of it. When meaning collapses under the pressure of systemic rot, awe doesn’t always cut through. But maybe you’re right—maybe struggle itself is part of the path. Even if some days it just feels like noise.
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Not my strong point is it?
The thing that keeps me going is of course not a cure all, I respect your point of view and I hope I didn’t come off as preachy or patronising. My issue is with people and not existence, the rot effects me, just differently.
I’ve had a few religious people try to infuse me with the thing that gives them purpose, it was a water off a ducks back kind of thing, I did appreciate the effort, I could see that they didn’t understand why I didn’t get it.
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Time for Sisyphus to set-aside the rock-pushing and find other actions. No one cares if he is “happy” doing this absurd act, over and over again.
Yeah, the struggle is the point, the struggle defined as both good times and bad times despite the awareness of inherited surrounding social dystopia. Macrofutilism, but micro-engagement with the glories of compromised existence with like-minded fellow travelers through life.
Hey, you write really, really well. Excellent, top-of-the-line stuff here. I’m not going to log-roll too much – I’m not really a Chomsky, guy, am not an anarchist, nor a communist, nor do I think capitalism has much to fear from last-stage humans, as anti-corporate as I like to imagine myself to be.
Hopefully, you enjoy the process of writing here. You’ve got skills, no doubt about that.
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Thanks — seriously. I appreciate the kind words and the engagement. I don’t expect everyone to be aligned ideologically, but it means something when someone reads all the way through and takes the time to respond with nuance.
I hear what you’re saying about Sisyphus — that maybe it’s time to put the boulder down, or at least rethink the ritual. I’ve felt that too. Maybe the act of resistance needs to shift, morph, escape its own performance. But the question that haunts me is: to what? What replaces the absurd ritual once you stop believing in the myth that gives it shape? I’m not convinced joy-through-compromise is enough — or even possible — for everyone.
Still, I’m glad this landed with you in some way. And yeah, I write because it’s the one way I can still push back, even if the resistance is just a whisper into the void. Better that than silence. Or surrender.
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Sartre and Camus had different solutions to the problem of nihilism. Where Camus’ advocated becoming the absurd hero of your own life, Sartre advocated living authentically.
Sartre gave the example of a hypothetical waiter at a cafe. The waiter seems to move a little too fast; he seems a little too eager to take the customer’s order; his smile is a little too enthusiastic; his movements have a robot-like precision. He seems to be playing at something, and it is easy to see what: he is playing at being a waiter. His behavior is completely governed by what he thinks a waiter is and what he thinks a waiter does. It’s analogous to an actor playing Hamlet. The waiter must take the customer’s order because that is what a waiter does. Hamlet must kill Polonius because that is what Hamlet does. But the actor is not Hamlet, and the man is not a waiter. He may choose not to go to work at all, something a waiter cannot do. You are not the roles you play. (This example is paraphrased from Being and Nothingness)
He gave another example of a young man in France during WWII. The young man has a sick mother whom he takes care of. He feels like the right thing to do would be to leave home and join the resistance for the sake of all France, but he also feels like the right thing to do is to stay with his mother. He cannot avoid making the choice for himself. Even if he asked a priest what to do, he would still have to decide to follow the priest’s advice or not. Sartre describes humans as doomed to be free. We have no choice but to make choices by ourselves. (This example is paraphrased from Existentialism is a Humanism)
When people eschew their responsibility, saying “I had no choice,” Sartre says they are in bad faith. Essentially, they are lying to themselves in order to feel more comfortable with their choices. Being in good faith means acknowledging your sole responsibility to make your own choices. Living authentically means being in good faith and making choices intentionally in a way that reflects your most deeply held values.
Rather than rebellion, Sartre suggests taking ownership of your life and creating meaning for yourself.
(See also writings by Simone de Beauvoir)
But what if you feel powerless and creating meaning feels empty? It’s important to note that while depression and nihilism can be related, they are different things. Depression cannot usually be solved by reading philosophy books or just thinking about it, but there are effective ways of addressing it. Emotional resilience can be learned to a certain extent.
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Thanks for this — seriously. I appreciate the way you laid it out. I’ve read Sartre, though it’s been a while, and your reminder about “bad faith” resonates. The freedom to choose, even under oppressive circumstances, is both liberating and crushing. The weight of that freedom feels heavier lately — like I’m aware of it, but too exhausted to do much with it.
I think that’s part of the tension I’m sitting in. Camus’ absurd hero chooses to push the boulder. Sartre’s authentic man chooses to act in accordance with his values. But what happens when the choosing starts to feel hollow? When the values themselves feel destabilized by the sheer scale of the collapse around us? I’m not sure if that’s nihilism or burnout with a philosophical costume.
And yeah — I agree, this might be depression talking, not just existential dread. Philosophy gives language to the feelings, but it can’t always dig you out of the pit.
Still, I keep coming back to the spite — that small, stubborn urge to resist despair even if resistance itself feels performative. Maybe that’s a kind of authenticity too. Not a confident choice, but a clawed-together one. A middle finger raised from the bottom of the hill.
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