Picking Better Times to Think “Nothing Matters"
How we tend to be nihilistic exactly at the worst times
It’s funny, but I think we tend to think “nothing matters” exactly when we need to think “nothing matters” (and thus I need to act on it), as we think “nothing matters” precisely when we need to slow down and pay attention to something else. Why is it that when our kids want to play that we’re busy, but when we want to watch Netflix we suddenly have time? There’s something strange about humans in this way—we’re not very good at sizing up our own situations—and I can’t help but think that it would be good to remember that “nothing matters” when my kids want to play. I do have time. Nothing matters.
Nihilism can be useful to help us avoid “taking ourselves too seriously” (even if the most fundamental forms of nihilism are impossible, as argued in Missing Axioms by Samuel Barnes). Yes, nihilism can go too far, but there is also something about it that can help us “hold things looser.” There’s nothing wrong with working hard, but if that work is keeping us from everything else in our lives, it might actually be good for us to remember that it ultimately “doesn’t matter.” From what I can tell, this is a realization that a lot of people suddenly have on their deathbeds: what they thought was important wasn’t really that important, and what they didn’t think they had time for was what they should have spent more of their time on. But I also can’t help but assume that nobody intends to make this mistake, and probably a lot of people work hard to avoid it, and yet countless people make the mistake all the same. How? Well, maybe it’s because work at the time really feels like we need to focus on it, and we don’t feel like we have time for playing hide-and-seek. We’re not being arbitrary and careless when we tell our kids we’re busy—I mean, we are busy, right? And work is only demanding more of us these days—bills to pay, inflation worsening—on and on. The pressures and pulls are strong and real, and yet this might be precisely why we need nihilism. Nihilism might have enough strength to fight against these real and powerful tensions.
To really resist the pulls of work and Capitalism, nihilism might be the only force up for the job. Perhaps nihilism is “a gift of grace” from God? Indeed, there is something about belief in God that makes “nothing but God matter,” which suggests that “nothing matters” (in this life). This risks disembodied Gnosticism, yes, and in this way Gnosticism and nihilism might have a lot in common. Still, that danger acknowledged, what we are suggesting here is that it can be good to think “nothing matters” (rather from a place of Theology or Atheism), precisely because this can help us resist the influences of power, pressures of “status anxiety,” and more. If “nothing matters,” why not pursue what we’ve always dreamed of? It won’t be easy, no, but why not give it a go? After all, nothing matters.
If this world doesn’t matter because Heaven is all that matters, why not act silly and foolish in the eyes of Capitalism? Why not be “incomprehensible” (like Deleuze stresses)? Yes, this risks going too far and us not caring about the environment, sex, or the like, but nihilism could help us be healthy and dialectical. It’s hard not to feel and live as if our career is all that matters, as if we need the approval of the people around us or life will be empty, as if we need a bigger house—but if “nothing matters,” we can give ourselves a tool and power to fight these incredibly powerful feelings and pressures.
Samuel Barnes in The Iconoclast teaches us that “everything can be a matter of philosophy,” and that means nothing has to be “unquestionable.” If this is the case, we can always be free, and nihilism can be a way to feel and live out this freedom. We feel like we must live according to Capitalism and the world, but if we really believed “nothing mattered,” we might find ourselves able to free ourselves exactly as we always hoped. Nothing is (a) key.
We tend to consider how “nothing matters” when we suffer a setback or feel depressed, and yet when we feel busy and like we have a lot to do, we usually feel as if “this really matters.” Here, I am suggesting that we get it exactly backgrounds: it is when we are depressed that we need to think “nothing really matters,” and when I am busy and stressed that I need to think “nothing matters.” We are paradoxes, and we intend to choose Nihilistic considerations precisely when they cannot aid us into dialectical power or inspiration. When we feel like something is infinitely important, we need to think “nothing matters” so that we make ourselves “dialectical” (moving between valuing something and not valuing it), both so that we can be more Hegelian (an Absolute Knower) and so that we increase our accuracy that we discern the situation well. If we only think “this matters,” we’re likely emotionally and psychologically compromised, but if we think “this doesn’t matter,” we’ll likely lack the focus and conviction to consider the subject of our focus in a balanced and rightful fashion. A dialectic is needed, but we seem to naturally choose to consider nihilism precisely when we cannot prove dialectically advantageous (which is to say it feeds into A/A versus A/B, to suggest language often used in O.G. Rose).
When we have work to do, we struggle to remember “nothing matters”; when the work we do is rejected, we struggle not to think “nothing matters.” When our children want to play, we don’t have time; when we do have time, we’re bored. We are a natural mess, which suggests the need for “abstract reasoning” so that we can escape and transcend our immediate circumstances. And here we suggest that when we are depressed, we need to use “abstract reasoning” to escape this immediate experience and remember “nothing matters,” as we need to use “abstract reasoning” to escape the feelings of “status anxiety” and “Capitalist pressure” so that we make time for family. After all, nothing matters, so why not remember to live? Well, because it’s hard, requires combating our emotions, which tend to appear with such force and sway. It’s no easy battle to win (the dragon is strong). For this reason, it will require training and habituation so that when we feel tempted to employ nihilism at the wrong time, we won’t, and when we’re tempted to avoid nihilism precisely when we need it to free ourselves (from ourselves), we won’t. Training, conditioning, skill—these are topics stressed throughout O.G. Rose, topics which I also align with the work of Hegel, but that is a topic I will leave for The Absolute Choice.
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