Albert Camus (1913–60)
Nihilism is not only despair and negation, but above all the desire to despair and to negate.
Maybe. Maybe not.
A point of view always seems to lie inextricably embedded in the murky middle somewhere between a particular philosophy of life and whatever particular circumstantial convulsions you happen to be caught up in at the time.
In other words, you can have a brutally cynical and pessimistic philosophy of life yet be deeply enscounced in a comfortable, satisfying lifestyle. You may be loved and valued and respected. You may be fullfilled sexually, in perfect health and embarked on a career you find stimulating and rewarding. And as long as you are immersed successfully “out in the world” it is easy enough to distract yourself from philosophical qualms.
Or, instead, you can have a generally optimistic, cheery philosophy of life and then suddenly fall into a circumstantial abyss from which you cannot seem to escape. As your existential worries and woes accumulate day after day you may begin to notice how little your uplifting and benevolent philosophy is contributing to resolving the crisis. Or even comforting you.
Most of us, of course, flipflop back and forth between the two. Sometimes we are able to concentrate on philosophical questions and other times they are the farthest thing from our minds.
For example, how many people in the path of those tsunami waves in South Asia were able to take comfort in a benevolent philosophy of life? Some, perhaps. Especially those able to anchor their’s to God or some sort of religous salvation. But most were preoccupied with other things. Like coping with enormous grief and desolate feelings of loss.
I believe it is important for the philosophically minded to occasionally ask themslees, “how would my philosophy fare if it was me in the path of the tsunami?”
When push comes to shove, feelings of despair and negation sometimes make perfect sense. And for each individual, immersed in his or her own set of existential variables, it will always be something they have to work out for themselves. It is foolish to suppose you can really understand why others react as they do to life’s trials and tribulations.
And it can be especiallly foolish to suppose you really understand why you react as you do to your own.