Why Is Nihilism The End Goal of Life?

Last night was horrible for me. Bond (my dog) was up and barking the whole night at the voice of strays in the village. To protect everyone else's sleep, I volunteered to play with him. But amidst all of this, I became increasingly curious about what he was trying to communicate. What did his barking mean? Or well, what does being a dog mean?

I'm not sure if I'll ever know that, but I caught myself thinking again “What does it mean to be a human?”

Some would say it means dedicating yourself to something or being a good person. Others would say not to think so much about it. But perhaps the answer lies in something that has shaped human civilization since its inception, our relationship with abundance and scarcity.

Our Existential Condition

Humanity has always strived for abundance. Whether you look at biblical stories of Eve eating the forbidden apple, the invention of money to exchange more commodities, the rise of agriculture to produce more food, or the Industrial Revolution to manufacture more goods, our history has been the same.

Thomas Hobbes, the 17th-century philosopher, described our natural condition in his masterwork "Leviathan" as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short", a war of all against all where self-interest governs human behavior. He suggested that this was the actual human condition before societies formed.

This view suggests that without social structures and shared meaning, humans exist in perpetual conflict. Our natural state, according to Hobbes, is one of scarcity and competition rather than abundance and cooperation.

But this creates a paradox.

We form societies to escape the brutality of nature, yet these very societies eventually breed a different kind of emptiness. We willingly surrender certain freedoms to authority to escape this Hobbesian state of nature. Similarly, we often surrender authenticity and meaning for the comfort of mass-produced experiences and identities.

Hobbes couldn't have imagined how technology would create a new state of nature, not of physical scarcity but of meaning scarcity. What began with our escape from natural scarcity has evolved into an industrialization of experience itself.

Take the example of Henry Ford's assembly line which didn't just change manufacturing but also redefined our relationship with existence. Craftsmanship stepped back to give way to standardization. Objects lost uniqueness, becoming interchangeable units rather than expressions of creativity.

Similarly, mass media homogenized ideas, drowning out individual voices with standardized narratives. Social media platforms have turned our most intimate moments into standardized content units, optimized for engagement rather than authenticity.

Today, with generative AI, we're witnessing the ultimate form of mass production. AI can now write poetry, compose music, and create art that mimics human expression. The human imagination itself has been industrialized.

The final frontier may be the mass production of humanness itself as humanoid robots and AI companions become more sophisticated, promising connections without the messiness of human relationships.

The Paradox of Abundance

Viktor Frankl, the renowned psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, argued in his seminal work "Man's Search for Meaning" that the fundamental human drive is not pleasure or power but meaning. Through his experiences in concentration camps, he observed that those who maintained a sense of purpose, even in the most dehumanizing conditions, had a better chance of survival.

Frankl developed logotherapy, a form of existential analysis centered on the belief that striving to find meaning in life is the primary motivational force in humans. But what happens when meaning itself becomes mass-produced?

When everything is available, nothing feels special. The decline of craftsmanship has also robbed us of the satisfaction that comes from mastery. When all experiences are accessible, none seem transformative. The paradox of choice overwhelms us, leaving us paralyzed and dissatisfied.

We are, as sociologist Émile Durkheim might describe, in a state of "anomie", a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values.

The Freedom in Meaninglessness

Within our crisis lies an unexpected opportunity. The collapse of inherited meaning systems, whether religious, cultural, or social, forces us to confront a fundamental truth: meaning is not discovered but created.

Nihilism, often misunderstood as mere despair, can actually be liberating. Friedrich Nietzsche, after declaring "God is dead," didn't stop at destruction but called for a reevaluation of all values. The death of imposed meaning creates space for self-created purposes. Nietzsche saw nihilism not as a destination but as a necessary challenge to overcome as a clearing of ground for new creation.

When we accept that there is no inherent meaning to existence, we're freed from the tyranny of external validation. The question shifts from "What is the meaning of life?" to "What meaning will I create for my life?" This is not despair but radical responsibility.

Albert Camus suggested that we must imagine Sisyphus happy, finding purpose in the struggle itself rather than its outcome. In a world of mass production, the act of creating personal meaning, however temporary, becomes a revolutionary act.

This perspective aligns with Eastern philosophical traditions as well. Buddhism's concept of emptiness (śūnyatā) doesn't lead to nihilism but to liberation from attachment. When we stop clinging to fixed meanings, we can experience reality more directly.

The mass production that threatened to rob life of meaning may ultimately be the catalyst that forces us to create meaning more consciously.

Just as the Renaissance emerged from the Black Death, forcing humanity to reevaluate its relationship with mortality and meaning, our current crisis may be the prelude to a new understanding of what it means to be human.

The question becomes not whether life has meaning, but what meaning we choose to give it. And in that choice lies our uniquely human power, the ability to create significance in an indifferent universe.

In a world where meaning is mass-produced, creating your own purpose becomes the ultimate act of resistance. What meaning will you choose to create?