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Existence et Nihil: Definition of Nihilism
10:56 May 13 2011
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Fate, Destiny, Divinity, Belief, Nirvana, all of these words reflect upon the form of faith that each of us follow. Many of us have a belief that there is some plan for our lives, that something omnipotent directs us in subtle ways towards the ultimate future. However, what if I told you there are those who believe that none of that is real and that life has no purpose? It’s true, oddly enough, and this idea is found throughout history, some of which is right under our noses. The idea of nothing is actually called Nihilism, the root of the word, ‘Nihil,’ is Latin for ‘Nothing.’ The word Nihil is found in ‘Annihilation’ which means ‘to bring to nothing’ or ‘to destroy completely.’ Many individuals do not know the term, or the depths of the term, however the term lives among us non-the-less. In some cases we embody Nihilism, finding comfort in the ‘nothing’ that is presented. There have been many times in life where I gave into nothing, allowed to become numb. I know that others have done the same, either because of disgust with life or the loss of faith in being. We are creatures of faith, yet when we suffer, cry out to the Heavens for saving and gain nothing, we find solace in nothing. I have watched family slowly die before me, suffering as they waste away into the infinite. Witnessing such at a young age leaves a massive hole in the heart and the soul that can never be filled. Sixteen years of age should not be filled with such grief, such dark thoughts, but after the death of a person you have cared for. Spending your entire child hood protecting and keeping safe, it’s no wonder I came to the edge of sacrifice in order to sacrifice all. So I stared at the knife, wondering, if giving into nothing is truly, nothing.





A dark stage, there Macbeth presents his utter disgust with life:



“…Out, out brief Candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more; it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying Nothing!”



(Shakespeare, William Macbeth. Act 5, Scene 5)





Those who have been part of drama, or enjoy the work of Shakespeare know of his ability to present a very dark play based around the folly of our morals and ethics. As dark as this passage is, it holds much more than just Macbeth’s disgust with life, but a fundamental aspect to Nihilism. Nihilism, the utter core of it, is that anything in life has no meaning, no purpose. Somehow, through some random chance, we were conceived and that there is no divinity guiding us through our lives. In all, what we perceive as divinity, is our own insecurity with life, with the fact that we were just a happen stance of molecules becoming more than waste. So, the basic idea is that “Nihilism literally has only one truth to declare, namely, that ultimately Nothingness prevails and the world is meaningless” (Thielicke, Helmut. Nihilism: Its Origin and Nature, with a Christian Answer, 1969).





When you see life before you, especially your own life, you begin to wonder about life in all things, not just your own. How could a world have nothing, mean nothing, when so much means everything? We sacrifice and then sacrifice the sacrifice, and this continues over and over until what is left, is nothing, for even God is sacrificed in the last aspect of cruelty (Keenan 167). It’s argued among certain philosophies of Nihilism that the emotions and morals we live by, we experience, are pointless. Everything we learn in such manners are social and emotional pressures placed upon us by society. So regardless of our moral point of view, it’s all meaningless (Almeida 96). So, if morals are meaningless, taking the knife that is in my hands and slitting my wrists would mean my death would mean nothing. If that is the case, my soul would not be damned and I would just simply fade from being. Rather scary thought honestly, to place such emphasis on the existence of nothing. If the death of myself by my own hands would be so easy, why do I feel a deeper aspect of ‘wrong’ that is much deeper then the moral externals ‘pressured’ upon me? Death, especially our own, by our own hands is not an easy thing to admit to. Something deep within the soul cries out that this is wrong, to even think of such, is wrong. Yet those who gave into nothing, who are willing to meld into the nothing, no longer hear this for they have nothing. In mindsets like this the following comes to front “Once set in motion, the process of questioning could come to but one end, the erosion of conviction and certitude and collapse into despair” (The specter of the Absurd, 1988). Scary, how we can accept the ‘nothing’ in existence, but trick ourselves that our death would mean ‘something’. In a nihilistic view that ‘trick’ is the last hold on ‘moral’ pressures placed upon us by society, a sign of weakness towards the ‘conviction’ of nothing.





We place such a high value on knowledge and truth, that when that knowledge or truth has been proven false, our lives begin to crumble. Before that dark point in my life, I believe my grandfather, aunt and mother would always be around. As much as I knew they would eventually pass away, it was never something I considered as a real possibility at that point. Yet, as we all know, we learn the ‘truth’ the hard way, sometimes, very hard. After taking care of an aunt dying of diabetes, a grandfather suffering from cancer and a rare disease, finally a mother who died of diabetes, my ‘knowledge’ and ‘truths’ failed me. My world crumbled around me in three short years as those I loved were taken away from me. I was raised that if I knew what I was doing, I could save those I loved, how wrong was that thought, especially for a boy who grew up protecting his ill mother. We have seen the ‘truth’ fail before, one good account is World War Two, the invasion of Okinawa. Before our, allied, arrival on the island, the Yamato Japanese told the Okinawan people that if they did not fight for them, the Americans would rape the women and kill the children. The Okinawans didn’t know the real ‘truth’ they only knew the ‘perceived’ truth by the Yamato Japanese. So, many of the Okinawan people gathered at the suicide cliffs and jumped to their death, in fear of our arrival. We wonder if that could have been stopped, if we could have done something to present the ‘truth’. However, regardless if we presented the ‘truth’ to them, it would have failed them, for the truth wasn’t the actual truth, it was just ‘our’ truth.





My final thoughts before my conviction, was that of life, the pain of those around me. I wasn’t the only one who suffered, but I was the only one who took the responsibility of their lives. I felt if I had not failed in my care, they would not have died, but to reason with someone in such a state would have been a short coming. People kill each other for shoes, religious zealots march upon the world, spewing out hatred towards race and other faiths out of ‘dutiful ignorance’ towards a ‘single’ being. How can one wish to live in a world such as this, a world so full of hate and shame, surely if God had existed, he would have been disgusted. So, at that point, God was nothing, for if he did not see this pitiful existence and was not willing to save ‘one’ young man’s family from death, then he surly did not exist. When the young man turned to him for help to save those who he cared for, but they passed on instead, it only meant that he cared not for anyone anymore. So, existence in all meant nothing, if death was a gate way towards Heaven and Hell, then death when giving to nothing, held nothing. So many fell into the belief of one man, Jim Jones, followed his doctrine, and this led to their death as he embraced ‘nothing’ at the end. When all he built upon the world, his world, fell through and others wanted out, he could not deal with it. So instead of giving them the freedom they wished, he condemned them, and himself, to a fate of nothing. He, as God, sacrificed himself as God, bringing the ultimate end to sacrifice, the ultimate cruelty. This would not bring back all those dead, this would only leave many to wonder ‘why God, why’. They seek answers to the question, but achieve nothing, for ‘God’ is not listening, which is obvious that we are nothing, no longer anything and only await the Annihilation of our futures.





So, thinking back at that drastic time in my life, when the world was nothing and life equally so, I thank Shiva and God for their wisdom. At that point, I did not know the truth of Nihilism, but I knew what nothing meant. In the words of Neitzsche “Nihilism is… not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one’s shoulder to the plough; one destroys” (Will to Power. Notes from 1883 – 1888). I knew to accept such ‘nothing’ was to destroy everything that was me and what was left of my family. I could not be so selfish to sacrifice them as well, it was not their choice to lose life as it had, why should I be so selfish to believe I only suffered. At that point I put down the knife and thank God, my mother, aunt and grandfather for the life they gave me, and knew that life was not meaningless. Only now, nearly eleven years later do I realize the depth of my own struggle and the depth of Nihilism, not only in modern society, but my own life. I came to realize God exist, if not in the same meaning as many others, God exist within me. We give importance to life, we make life important, and we give importance to our faith. Even if our faith is truly nothing, it’s not ‘nothing’ to those who believe, and I believe. So, Shiva and God exist, they live, and all that is life, matters, not because I realize this in logic, but I realize this in heart and soul. Nihilism is the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice of all that was given to us and ultimately selfish. I was asked what Nihilism meant to me once I knew the truth of it, and now it’s known. Nihilism is utter selfishness and the sacrifice of all that makes us alive, nothing and nothing less.

Work Cited

Nihilism. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved June 28, 2010, from Dictionary.com. Web. 22 June 2010



Pratt, Alan. “Nihilism.” 23 April 2001. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web. 22 June 2010.

Almedia, Michael “Two Challenges to Moral Nihilism.” The Monist: Peru IL 2010. Web. 24 June 2010



Kennan, Dennis K. “Nietzsche and the Eternal Return of Sacrifice.” The Netherlands: Leiden NV, 2003. Web. 24 June 2010