If death is inevitable, why bother?

Welcome to Nihilism, people are gonna hate you and supposedly pity you because truly they believe that to believe that nothing is objective and that the world is defined by the individual is some kind of heresy that would apparently doom yourself to a life of apparent pointlessness.

In fact life is pointless, because meaning gives way to meaning and so on, and it is almost always what one does not have that one sees as what is wanted (ethics - an ill man wants health, a poor man wants riches), but ultimately reasoning brings you to a dead end where logic proves itself autonomous, thus defining it's importance and also rejecting the notion that importance is anything but value given by the individual.

But because life is ultimately 'pointless' in the sense it achieves nothing but giving way to more pointlessness, you have much more freedom than people seem to notice. You have the power to give your life the meaning you wish it to have, to fulfill life for yourself and enjoy it.

Life could therefore be considered as full of meaning, if only the meaning is to find your own happiness and make your own preceding choices.

Yes, indeed. When I met Nietzsche, I later met Nihilism and indeed, you are correct on the part of about acquring freedom and how knowing that life is pointless and devoid of meaning actually liberates you.

Don't you get it?

Look, listen and ask yourself the question below:

Do you know of anything else besides existence (i.e. what you are in now)?

If your answer is no (which I expect it to be, of course!), then such questions are futile. You have found yourself in existence with only limited answers (provided for by science) and no defined purpose (except for an archaic and outdated 'to pass on your genes and survive' purpose). Therefore, I can't see what the problem is. Do anything you want, but be careful to abide by state laws. However, others have gone through this stage and instead decided to live according to created precepts or followed the way of the society in which they find themselves in (e.g working toward a career, a family, holidays, a spouse, a house, car, money etc). Others (such as I) have ascended further and look to the stars and work towards securing funds, status and self-establishment in preparation for the future (technological advancement, space exploration).

Why do we feel compelled to live life like it has a purpose? Okay, death could count as purpose, but why bother adhering to rules and being 'good' if our bodies are just going to rot in the ground?

I am not good with words so please bear with me if I sound like an utter idiot in this post.

I do understand that the perceived pointlessness of our lives presents us the opportunity to possibly create our own 'purpose' in life. I live by the attitude that I am bound by my own fears and state laws; my own fears stem from my ignorance, which means that I feel that I should strive to acquire more knowledge in order to live my life as free as possible thus creating my own purpose for life. *cautiously expecting arguments against this* As much of the people have expressed here, I feel that the reason to bother with life is because my life will eventually come to an end so I might as well make the most of it while I am still alive.

This thread probably sounds quite useless to you but I enjoy having an insight into other people's views about my silly questions, sometimes I get carried away and ask 'why?' too much - probably confusing myself further and infuriating people I probably should stop questioning every single thing but it's too tempting. I apologise for a post that probably doesn't even make sense as a reply - I just wanted to hear about philosophy!

What exactly do you mean 'bother with life'? What would you want instead - death (unless of course, you knew of some other existence)?

I hate, absolutely hate, when people say stuff like that.

It's not my fault that I'm not crap and ugly that no one will love me.

Why do we feel compelled to live life like it has a purpose? Okay, death could count as purpose, but why bother adhering to rules and being 'good' if our bodies are just going to rot in the ground?

(I probably sound like an idiot to the philosophers out there but I am intrigued about the responses.)

Why do we feel compelled to live life like it has a purpose? Okay, death could count as purpose, but why bother adhering to rules and being 'good' if our bodies are just going to rot in the ground?

Why do we feel compelled to live life like it has a purpose? Okay, death could count as purpose, but why bother adhering to rules and being 'good' if our bodies are just going to rot in the ground?

(I probably sound like an idiot to the philosophers out there but I am intrigued about the responses.)


*cautiously submits thread*

If you are here to reply with the fact that I am being pessimistic, etc...don't worry, you don't have to waste a post as a few already have done it.

I purely created this thread because I was curious about people's attitudes towards life, not because I feel that there is no point to life or to bring anyone down.

Because once you die all that will be left will be the memories that others have of you


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

I agree with the 'happiness is the meaning of life' thing but if for example I ceased to exist, I wouldn't exist to feel sad that I didn't exist, I wouldn't be able to care about grieving family or anything. I wouldn't know any better.

There really is no point to life, it's just something to pass the time.