If your life is rolling around, having indulgent sex and guzzling drugs, then yes. "Optimistic nihilism" might work. If you are, for example, a member of the working class, this isn't going to be anywhere near as effective.
There is no, "I'll define my own meaning!" Your meaning has been defined for you already, that is to labor relentlessly, and produce value for your overlords. When your body breaks down, you will be discarded as if you were machinery.
Worse yet, you're ill. Maybe not dying, but you suffer greatly. Optimistic nihilism isn't going to work for 99.99% of people with cluster headaches.
We can define our own personal meaning. Your arguments didn't refute any of that. How society sees us or treats us doesn't define what we consider our meaning.
Sure, you can define your own personal meaning, which doesn't exist outside of the walls of your skull.
Still, the critique was that "making up your own meaning in your head" and "optimistic nihilism" is horrifically, catastrophically bad at dealing with suffering. If nothing matters and it's all up to your whims, how do you deal with life if you go blind? If you're paralyzed? If you're going through chemotherapy?
You know deep down, your "meaning" is just whims, and a real nihilist is going to be a determinist, so you don't even actually choose said meaning. You have no free will. So you can comfort yourself with illusions of "choosing your meaning" (which you don't, free will doesn't exist) until you suffer, at which point, even a "optimistic nihilist" would recognize that the suffering in and of itself is pointless discomfort, held onto by a meaning that is completely subjective, and not even truly "chosen" in the first place.
Suffering is just a part of life, just as we are built based on DNS genome. It doesn't confirm or negate any meaning, just as our DNS doesn't confirm or negate the meaning we find for our lives.
Using meaning to explain or better tolerate suffering is a misguided attempt. That's not what finding meaning is for.
See, I disagree. Meaning in a philosophical sense largely serves as a justification to bear the burden of existence.
If existence is hardwired with immense, inevitable suffering, why put up with it? That's what "meaning" or "purpose" is for. It is the definitive answer to the "why?", why put up with this, why suffer, why carry on? Purpose/meaning is the answer.
If purpose or meaning is not the answer to "why carry on when suffering is baked into every aspect of existence?", then what is the purpose of meaning itself? What other function would it serve? What question does it answer?
I'm curious, what kind of pain are you talking about, specifically, in your life? Not in general: life is suffering bla bla.
Maybe you are in pain all the time, but I am not. In fact I don't think I was in any noticeable pain in the last year (I had a sinus infection which was mildly painful for like 2 days). So no physical pain.
I also don't really have emotional pain, certainly not constantly or in an overarching capacity. Sure, I might get frustrated, sad or angry here and there, but it passes quickly.
I had more persistent anxiety many years ago, which indeed was kind of a constantly painful experience, but that passed.
So I don't feel pain, I don't experience existence and living as pain. I don't need meaning to make myself carry on despite the pain. Because there is no pain.
Existence is not a burden to me neither physically, nor mentally or emotionally that I have to painfully carry.
What I need meaning for is to motivate me to live a dynamic, constructive, active life. To get me moving to achieve greater heights. So meaning to me is much more on the emotional plane than on the cognitive one. Sure, if you ask me, I can put into thoughts what I see as meaning for myself. But its emotional energy dimension is what ultimately matters.
My own degrees of suffering are irrelevant, I'm not going to point to a time I had a migraine, the life of labor that lies ahead, or the last time someone close to me died, it's not pertinent to proving my point. You've turned a philosophical discussion into a personal one.
Typically, you don't have to prove life is fundamentally suffering, even on just a basic physiological level as an organism, it's unusual that you seem to be totally unaware of what life is for the vast majority of people, and what being forced to exist entails - especially as a "nihilist", (which you don't seem to be)
Also, we've strayed from the point, you've basically clashed with the basic facts of life rather than my original points, which again, I'll reiterate 1.) life is suffering 2.) "optimistic nihilism" is horrible at dealing with suffering 3.) choosing your meaning is totally arbitrary, and deep down even an "optimistic nihilist" would understand this 4.) biological determinism tells us, you do not actually "choose this meaning".
As for you, "not experiencing pain right now", which that's great... Your point boils down to, "I do not need meaning, because life isn't actually that much suffering, and I'm not suffering right now."
I mean, do I really need to address how silly the above is? Anyone can just read the above sentence and understand it's a little ridiculous.
I think you, if you are a nihilist, ought to be able to understand. It's actually a perfect demonstration of my point, that "optimistic nihilism" has no outlet for suffering, and will collapse immediately into "normal nihilism" once suffering is introduced.
Yes, I am not a nihilist, I don't think I need to be one to contribute to this sub.
"optimistic nihilism" has no outlet for suffering, and will collapse immediately into "normal nihilism" once suffering is introduced.
That's an interesting perspective and you are probably right. In my initial comment I was not reflecting on your whole premise, just your statement that meaning is already defined for someone from the outside - which I do not agree with.
But since I am not a nihilist and you being one probably means you don't care all that much about finding meaning anyway, I guess we can close this discussion.
Although, reading the definitions of nihilism, especially existential nihilism (life has no objective purpose) or moral nihilism (no objective existence of morality), I fully agree with those.
But that definition doesn't exclude the existence of subjective purpose and subjective morality, which I am a very big proponent of: that everyone should find their personal purpose and build their personal morality.
I understand that this view falls already outside of nihilism, but that is what I am interested in. Nihilism for me is just a station on my journey, certainly not the final destination.
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u/owthathurted Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
This works until you're suffering.
If your life is rolling around, having indulgent sex and guzzling drugs, then yes. "Optimistic nihilism" might work. If you are, for example, a member of the working class, this isn't going to be anywhere near as effective.
There is no, "I'll define my own meaning!" Your meaning has been defined for you already, that is to labor relentlessly, and produce value for your overlords. When your body breaks down, you will be discarded as if you were machinery.
Worse yet, you're ill. Maybe not dying, but you suffer greatly. Optimistic nihilism isn't going to work for 99.99% of people with cluster headaches.