- Dancing Caveman:
- I don't understand how a nihlist mindest seems to come from the mind of someone troubled and pessimistic. Personally, I find the view of an afterlife to be more of a troubled and pessimistic attitude: Life sucks here on Earth, but when I die, I'll get to go to a glorious paradise and all those mean people will burn forever.
I agree.
However, many people who are nihilists, I think, aren't as "happy" as those who aren't. I think it all ties into thinking too deeply and when you think too deeply into something, happiness isn't really there anymore. Ignorance is bliss, and they're just not being ignorant. That's not to say everyone who isn't a nihilist is ignorant. I mean to them, they probably feel that others are etc. They're not living with a (possibly) false hope of an afterlife and eternal happiness, they're living with the idea that everything amounts to nothing. Honestly I don't see it as that depressing, really. It hits me in the same area as atheism; it just seems incredibly logical. Those who are very logical are people who have a difficult time with emotion anyway, I find.
I think branding nihilists as troubled is rather silly. Though I suppose they might be if they get into the mindset of, "If everything amounts to nothing and there's no purpose to life, why should I bother living?" then they're "troubled" I guess.
People who hold nihilistic views on the world could also see it as "Well, this life is meaningless and amounts to nothing so I should just do whatever I want and have mad fun..."
So hey, it could be a pretty great way to see things. You can do whatever you want and it won't matter at all ever.