If meaning isn’t assigned to us, how do we continue to live purposefully? Nietzsche named this nihilism, the idea that there is no objective meaning that comes built into the world. For many, nihilism is interpreted as depressive or empty. Not for Nietzsche, he thought that nihilism was instead the moment where self-responsibility starts.
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Introduction
To live life to the fullest is often driven by the fear of one’s inevitable death. Knowing one’s eventual ‘deadline’ profoundly shapes the goals we set for ourselves, the relationships we cultivate, and the urgency in which we act upon. Yet many continue to invest in ways of escaping death through immortality. This raises the profound philosophical question: would the existence of immortality strip life’s meaning?
Introduction
“I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really… I was alive.” i In the popular television series Breaking Bad, watched by millions of people worldwide, the chemistry teacher turned drug lord Walter White speaks these words to his wife in the show’s final episode. For five seasons, Walter White had manufactured methamphetamine, manipulated, and killed, all of which he insisted was for his family. The family received the money. And yet something had irrevocably changed, not in what Walter did, but in what his actions had actually been from the very beginning. His family was never the point, but rather an alibi.
