Philosophically, I tend to err on the side of (what I refer to as) optimistic nihilism. Meaning, I don’t necessarily believe we have a purpose. For some, that evokes a negative feeling. I, however, believe nihilism can be spun more positively. For example, if everything is purposeless, we might rephrase it as, “nothing is more important than another thing.” That gives us the freedom to associate our own importance to particular entities in a particular context on-the-fly. In other words, I might say, “coding is more important than knitting.” To which my fiance might contend, “knitting is more important!” Under nihilism, I can respond empathetically, “I suppose knitting is as significant as coding.” And, upon further inspection, that would be absolutely correct. Imagine the knitters of the early humans! They were onto something! Imagine being the first culture to wear clothes! Imagine being the first to spin cotton to yarn! Well… now I concede! Knitting is more important than coding!

After our example, we might see, nihilism can provide a grounding calm to contention. It can remind us to start an analysis from the perspective that nothing matters in the first place. Then we can build from that and associate importance as it applies to the current context. In the example, agreeing with the woman I love over something that doesn’t matter is the most important objective. Where other philosophies fail us, nihilism can provide that wisdom.