You could kill yourself and get nowhere

Although there is no intrinsic meaning in the universe, it’s not particularly helpful for me to believe that it’s pointless to try and construct my own meaning as a substitute.

While still honoring and indulging in the nihilistic parts of myself, my main approach to life is to be existentialist in nature, using the combination of my creativity, my awareness and my agency to make the meaning my soul requires to not destroy itself.

To cheat the cheater, as my favorite psychotherapist says, adopting an indomitable attitude towards existence.

This mindset isn’t just philosophy, it’s actually been highly useful to me on a daily, practical level. Particularly while working at soul sucking jobs whose corporate mission is far from idealistic.

Spending eight hours a day creating mediocre digital advertisements that persuade millions of people buy more pointless shit they don’t need? Not exactly making the world a better place here.

But that’s when it helps to maintain an existentialist bent.

Instead of killing yourself for a job that would replace you in a week if you died, you treat that work as a shrine to the money that fuels your art, which actually does make the world a better place.

Instead of drowning in the nauseous sense of existential dread that capitalism creates, you make use of the measure of freedom you possess, which allows you to create a fulfilling life that provides you a sense of stability.

Nepo, my favorite poet, says that poet’s labor is to struggle with the meaninglessness and silence of the world until he can force it to mean.

Doesn’t sound too bad, actually. Because when you really trust your imaginative resources, you realize just how much you can thrive by doing as little as necessary and as much as possible.

You can employ you creative gifts not only the work itself, but also in buttressing the work with an attitude that keeps meaning afloat in the face of the void.

LET ME ASK YA THIS..
What philosophical system provides you with the most useful story to tell yourself ?