The Myth of Nihilism
a sermon by Kenneth Langer
When I was about to go off to college my father promised me that I would get a new car. I imagined getting a little sports car or a hefty SUV but, of course, I knew better. My father was not the kind of person who would ever buy a brand new automobile. He preferred to work on old cars like those ancient Volkswagen squarebacks. A “new” car to him meant that it was new to me, not that it was unpurchased. The car I ended up with was a bright orange colored VW that blended in with the rust. I had to first push it down a hill to get it started and the floorboard had long ago rusted out so that if I looked down while I drove I could actually watch the road go by under my feet.
If you have been with me since I began this series you may have heard me say three weeks ago that you are not perfect. Two weeks ago you would have heard me say that there were no clear distinctions, no straight lines between things, and last week you may have heard me say that you are not the center of the universe. In each of these sermons I told you about why these are actually good things but, if like many of my former students, you only listened to half of what I said you might be thinking that I bring you only sad and depressing news. You might be thinking that I was telling you that you are flawed, that you are not important, and that nothing can be made clear anyway. In such a state, you might then surmise that life itself has no significant meaning or purpose and that would make you a nihilist.
A nihilist is someone who does not believe that life has meaning or purpose and I am going to argue that this idea is both right and wrong. No straight lines, remember? I believe that as a living being we do have a meaning and purpose but as individuals we have none. For some this would cause despair but I actually think it is a good thing. I think it is a message of hope. Let me explain.
First of all, I am going to separate meaning from purpose for a moment. Even though both meaning and purpose are very important to us humans, they are different things. Purpose is what we do while meaning is the significance we attach to our actions.
As we have seen recently from the marvelous pictures coming from the James Webb telescope, we are only one of billions and billions of solar systems that circle billions and billions of suns. Though it's quite possible that what we say about this world will also be true of other worlds, we only know about one so I will speak only about this world.
Second of all, I have to be careful about the use of the word ‘purpose’ because many people assume that a purpose must be bestowed upon something or someone by an outside force or being. Whether or not a purpose needs to be given to a thing by another power is a sermon for another day and I will leave it to you to answer that for now.
There are two fundamental things that I think can be said about our world. One, every single thing in this world is always in the process of becoming something else. Everything we know is changing even if it does not always appear to change. Land masses move, waters flow from place to place, mountains rise and erode, creatures evolve into other creatures, and so on. Nothing remains the same over time. Everything is always in the process of becoming something else.
Two, whatever comes from this evolving process is always something new. Volcanoes erupt and new and different lands form. Storms rip through landscapes and forever change the geography. An oak tree drops one of its acorns and that acorn eventually transforms into a new and distinct tree. One child is born from two and has similar qualities to its parents but also has its own unique personality. What develops is always unique which means that everything is novel and distinctive. That means the world is naturally diverse and divergent. That is how the world is supposed to be. That is part of its beauty. Every thing, every rock, every cloud, every microorganism, every plant, every animal, and every person is completely unique. Whoever you know, whatever you encounter has never been in existence before they appeared and will never come into existence again after they are gone. You have never existed on this planet before and no one like you will ever come again.
In other words, the nature of the universe is to be continuously creative and everything in the world is part of that process–everything, including you. By just being the one and only unique and singular you, you have already fulfilled your natural purpose. By just being the best person that you can be, you are part of the continuously creative transformation of the world. But, let’s take a closer look at what that means.
Creativity involves three stages: development, stasis, and decay. In development, existing things merge and something new emerges from that formation. Stasis is a steady state that allows for experimentation, exploration, and complexity. A new thing must remain stable for a time or else there would be only continuous development which is simply chaos. Finally, the new thing must decay so that it can provide the material that will merge into yet another new thing. As part of this process of creativity, the only natural purpose for your life is to survive and grow as fully as you can until it is time to return to the source of creativity, nothing more. The rest is up to you.
This may, at first, seem like a harsh reality but, once you accept it, is actually liberating. If you are not assigned or ordained a purpose by some separate centralized outside source, you are free to discover and follow your own. How do you do that? The best way to determine your own purpose is to follow your passion to the best of your capability. Find the things that interest and excite you. Seek out the things that give you joy and then pursue them. If you don’t know what that is then explore, experiment, try new things, read new books, meet new people, visit someplace different, join a new club, dream, imagine, take a chance.
The problem with a nihilistic view of life is that a lack of prescribed purpose can lead to a sense of loss and despair. In the midst of that feeling of emptiness some people become desperate to find something to fill it. They may seek a deity or a deity substitute or they may seek out a guru or a savior figure. This fear of emptiness or a lack of purpose is, I believe, one of the reasons that conspiracy theories abound and that there has been a rise in quasi-religious gangs and spiritual cults. It is also why people often stay so busy and submerge themselves into distractions and commitments and entertainment and any other number of diversions we have created for ourselves - anything to avoid thinking about the most fundamental questions. But, such avoidance only increases the feelings of despair that rise to the surface in moments of silence and contemplation. It is like expecting to get a new car and then finding out you have to drive a rusted out Volkswagen with a gaping hole at your feet. The difference is that you don’t need a wrench and hammer to build yourself the car you’ve always wanted. You already possess the power to build your own beautiful purpose for your life.
But what about meaning? How do we live a life of meaning? As I said earlier, meaning is contextual. Nothing has meaning in and of itself. Have you ever played the dictionary game? If you look up a word in the dictionary, it will be defined through the use of other words. If you look up any one of those words you will be directed to more words and if you continue to define the words that define the word you first looked up you may, eventually, end up being directed to your original word.
The same is true for real objects and for living beings. Each one is defined by its relationship to other things and it is only through these relationships that we find meaning. As social beings humans find much of their meaning in their relationships to each other but other relationships are important as well including relationships with other beings and with the earth itself. The deeper those relationships are, the more we feel a sense of meaning. It is why we chat with each other. It is why we form groups and clubs. It is why we reach out to one another. It is one reason we go to church.
The more deeply we can build relationships to those things involved in our lives, the greater will be the meaning we find in life but you have to access a way to make those connections.
The only power in the universe that can connect things, the only power that can create relationships, the only thing that can bring people together rather than separate them is the power of love. Meaning in life can only be found through love. But love is not a currency. It does not come to you because you did a good job or because you sold something on eBay. Like wildflowers in a field, love grows best in the presence of love and withers in its absence. Love grows love. Love begets love. Love defines meaning and can only deepen when love is given wherever it can flourish.
What I have been trying to say to you in these past four weeks is that you are a gift to the world and the purpose you find within this life is the gift you give back to the world. Your love is also a gift to the world and the more you share it, the more you will find and deepen the meaning of your own existence and of others as well.
In the end, the seeker who went to the mountain to discover the meaning of her life found her answer and that answer was to chop the wood and carry the water. But what she realized was that it is not what you do that makes the difference but how you do what you do that gives you a sense of meaning and purpose.
In the name of that which in your heart you hold to be sacred, may it be so.