If nihilism were a cafe, I would be fast friends with all their baristas. I would visit there often, rant about pretty much everything, and just end up enjoying my hazelnut mocha, because, well nothing matters.
Nihilism is not a cafe and I am writing this in another cafe- type of stuff I do often. Once I took ten days off and spent all of them exploring cafes around Washington, DC, the city I was living in then. I was dead bored by my job and the idea was to get the answers of my life through a ten day hiatus. Spoiler alert: Six months later, I still haven’t.
All the barista friends and I have figured out that life is inherently meaningless and any attempt at creating meaning is a mental construct. We concluded that everything we do is a way of generating self-importance.
Self-importance is generated through playing short term status games. I do X and that’s certainly a better way of living. Many people do it through money. But it’s not the only way. You could become a hermit and bitch about capitalism. Or you could claim to save the world through your work. Our solution to nihilism has been narcissism.
My barista friends and I used to think that life should amount to something. That a life is worth living when you achieved certain amounts of X, Y and Z. The truth, however, is very plain. You could sleep everyday on couch and would be forgotten. You could work really hard and would still be forgotten. We decided to be known (oops..forgotten) for brewing the best coffee.
We decided to not talk about this further and focus on our hazelnut latte instead. Nihilism coffee house has since changed its name to Freedom cafe. Isn’t it liberating? You can take the projects that feel the most fun without worrying about their viability. You can love people unconditionally. You could explain away everything in your life- because since nothing matters, what difference does it make if you didn’t get what you wanted?
We tell all our customers that the answer to all life’s questions is coffee. Is there anything that elevates your mood better than a cute latte art?
👍👌