An Ancient Chinese Philosophy Take on Nihilism

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At some point, I dated a Taiwanese girl – she immigrated from Taiwan to North America going back to school for a master’s degree in management – she had already finished undergrad in philosophy a some years prior from NTU (a top-notch university in Taipei). One of the things that connected us at first was that I also dived deep into philosophy in my undergrad – not as a major or by taking courses, but I was part of a philosophy club and we read and discussed for only our own passion for “truth” (or we thought back then) as opposed to for school.

One day, we planned to visit a library together – standard queer activity, iykyk. There was a section in the library for philosophy. Since we were enthusiasts in our undergrad, we took our time going through so many of the books in that section. We got so excited time and time showing each other some of our favorites. When we got to Eastern philosophy, she showed me a book and said if she could take only one book with her to an island, it would be this book (not the translated version tho, her mandarin level was advanced):

The next day, I went back to the library and bought the book – initially, I thought of buying it as a gift. But then I changed my mind. I bought it for myself to read. I wanted to see what I could have learnt about her from reading it – I am the most romantic person I know of.

So, this philosopher (or some argue collection of philosophers who presented themselves all under the label of Chaung Tzu/Zhou) lived 2000+ years ago. Apparently, in their era, the region of China that they lived in was pretty fucked by war and internal conflicts. Dark time to live in. Arguably, in response to the horror, grief, and despair, this philosopher introduced the idea that everyone got it wrong and the real value is in what I call, with no negative connotations in mind, fucklessness, where zero fucks exist in its broadest sense of meaning, where nothing has form, where the notion of value does not exist. Here are a number of notes I wrote myself in the corner of the book when reading the main essays:

1- How could something become useless if it were never useful to begin with?

2- How could someone turn ugly if they were never beautiful to begin with?

3- Why would I worry we’d never separate if we were never together to begin with? Why would I worry of our love to demise if we were never in love?

Here’s a quote from Chung Zhou to someone who was complaining about having a dead tree: “… Now you have this big tree and you’re distressed because it’s useless. Why don’t you plant it in Not-Even-Anything Village, or the field of Broad-and-Boundless, relax and do nothing by its side, or lie down for a free and easy sleep under it? Axes will never shorten its life, nothing can ever harm it. If there’s not use for it, how can it come to grief or pain?”

This philosophy is not (was never) the mainstream Chinese philosophy, and if anything, its ancient rival, Confucianism prevailed over time.

I find myself only partially aligned with this philosophy. From my point of view, sometimes we do not apply proper mathematics in deciding to pursue a goal. We are enticed by the prospect of success and forget to account for the other side of the equation. Is it worth the life that we have to put into achieving that goal? Is it worth the sacrifice of what we lose in the process? Our time, our capacity, our bandwidth, our mental energy, etc. Once we succeed, what are the downsides such as maintenance or whatever applicable? In certain moment, I have been through moments in my life when I realized I had to give up, and it was a mistake to persevere not worth my life to proceed. If I were a wiser person, I would have seen that some of the goals I accomplished were not worth my life before investing in them, before committing to them, before achieving them. This is where I see Chaung Zhou’s point of view valuable. To balance the equation. To complete the math. The difference is that Chaung Zhou ignored the other half of the equation and focused only on the valuelessness of accomplishments.

—-

As far as I remember, my depression started when I was 11 years old. I believe that the reason that it did not start earlier was that until that age, I was too oblivious about what was happening around me, my circumstance, how I was treated, and how the controls around me affected me. And it’s not like I woke up when I was 11, but I started to live slightly more outside of my head – I did not fully wake up until grade 7. My abusers (also known as my parents) did their best to “flay me into shape” (borrowed term from Pink Floyd, Trial) in a manner that maximizes their satisfaction out of life through portraying themselves as socially accomplished by having a “successful and accomplished” kid. I have not forgiven them for it. It is likely that I never well, despite the fact that it doesn’t hurt me anymore in any considerable way – how I managed to find my way towards healing is a story for another post.

I do not have many memories from that time, except flashbacks of me feeling that I am changing from within while my heart was sinking into the ground pulling me down with it. Flashbacks of hatred starting to grow within me. I had already internalized fear by that time, thanks for the verbal terror and non-physical violence of my abusers. I never felt connected to them nor did I feel safe to open up to them. Therefore, I showed nothing, and no one noticed anything. In hindsight, I don’t think they would have cared anyways. While I forcefully found a way forward in life, I carried depression, suicidal tendencies, fear, and hatred with me. My hatred did not allow my depression to stall me. For those 25 years, I “advanced” in life. When I first wrote this very line, after the last sentence, I wrote “whatever the fuck that means”. The reason is that I don’t feel like I lived as much life I could have had had I had been wiser and less depressed, and therefore, “advancing” was not so uplifting to me when I wrote it. But then I deleted that part. Because being poor is real, not having citizenship status is real, and I did “advance” in one way that I continue to find meaningful to this day; I left home, I lived on the poverty-line, I pulled myself out of it and achieved financial security and stable residency status – that shit counts and those privileges are very real to those I know experienced it, including myself.

I am not depressed these days/years. I have grown out of my depression. That growth was a 1.5 year long process, but on the other side, I felt alive like never before, I felt warm like never before, I felt freed, I felt light, I felt bright, I felt attractive, I felt content, I felt like my head is held higher than usual and my eyes look at higher points in the space when I walked. I found so my value in living, have so much preciousness, live enthusiastically, and do not want it to end at all. I realized for the first time what people felt when they fear of their life ending since to me, until I grew out of depression, the thought of end of life was not so terrible, just barely not my preference. 🙂

Throughout my teen years, I grew to become more philosophical and the pinnacle of my philosophical ingenuity was at age 16. So much of my take on life, nature, theology, and science was formed in those years. And my was dark. The darkest I could have imagined. Limitlessly dark. Let’s call it nihilistic. So much of life lost its meaning to me. So much pain started to dissipate. Deep underneath, nearly all efforts were fundamentally worthless. I had my own Zhing Zhou era. From what was left, the greatest one was the effort for survival. I thought it’s only worth surviving until I feel it’s still worth it. If the remainder of pain and despair further disturbed the balance, it wouldn’t have been worth living and I would have preferred to end it. My hatred played a role in fueling me to keep going forward.

That shit got me through through high school years and then I left home for university in another city. My university was on the outskirts of the city. It was a beautiful and massive campus.

When I was 19, one day, I was gonna get a cab from the city back to school. There was already a passenger in the cab that stopped for me, and the driver said that he can take me to the school after he drop the other passenger on our way. I didn’t think of it much and sat in the front.

They took a detour to drop the other passenger. I was in my own thoughts the whole time. Once we arrived at the destination, the passenger asked the driver politely to wait for him to check to see if his dad were home to open the door for him. Some seconds later, I noticed he walked back as someone else was opening their garage door, the passenger opened the front passenger door, and sat next to me squeezing me in, followed by an immediate movement of the car… forward through the garage doors! The moment that the car moved forward, it suddenly hit me that something is wrong. Before I had a chance to move or say anything, the passenger showed me a knife and asked me to remain quiet.

There were 3 men. The driver, the passenger, and the one who opened the garage door. They explained to me that as I long as I cooperate, they will not harm me – I recognized what qualified as harm give the circumstance. They took turn, alone with me in a room. The second person made some mess when he came. The room was dark and I didn’t turn around to look, but I’m pretty sure he felt bad or embarrassed by the mess and then wiped the up cum with a piece of cloth or napkin and said “sorry” and left. I still don’t know/understand why he apologized. Please keep your fucking speculation to yourself, I don’t give a fuck about your shitty psychological analysis.

When they were done with me, they said they are going to blindfold and take me out. Though one of them (the driver) held my underwear up and while showing it to me said it is not damaged or torn. I still don’t know why he did that.

In an unpredictable turn of events, they actually did end up dropping me near the main road not super far from the university and left. I’ve thought about this many times, and what I’m about to tell you is insane, I already know it. to get back to the school, I stood by the road and waved hands at passing cars for someone to take me to the university entrance, which was some 5 min drive away. Some guy stopped for me, I told him that I was rubbed, he agreed to drive me, and dropped me by the security personnel at the entrance. I thanked him, left the car, showed my student ID, and entered the campus. Some 20 steps into the campus, I concluded that I am safe now. That it is over. Right then, I asked myself whether the whole experience mattered to me. Whether it meant anything. I realized that it did not. It meant absolutely nothing. How could it possibly matter? What difference does it mean being raped or not? In a world where pretty much all things were meaningless, now that I am safe, this was just as insignificant as anything else. At least I had no reasons to think otherwise. “It was an event, I am safe now, I don’t feel that I cared what happened. There is no inherent value in not being raped. Why should I care? It’s as if it never happened.”

When I tell you I had arrived at the “darkest” of philosophies in the prior years, I mean it. I truly had no reason to think differently about what happened, and in my profoundly nihilistic thoughts, my feelings were in compliance with my beliefs and I didn’t feel anything about the experience. I didn’t feel bad that it happened to me. It’s not that I chose to disconnect as a mechanism to cope. It’s that the connection was deemed insignificant through my philosophical framework.

By the time I arrived at my residency and my room, I had already shrugged it off, and forgotten about it in the sense that it wasn’t on my mind anymore, which is why I was surprised when I was asked if anything has happened by other students. They said I had bruises. I made a deduction. So, when the 3 men took me to that room, at first, I resisted but very diplomatically and rather gently, but the drive held me down and had his arm wrapped around my neck, at which I stopped resisting before I get to the point of not being able to breath. When I was asked about the bruises, I realized that that interaction must have left some surface level injuries on me. I told everyone that I had an accident and it’s nothing serious. I recall that one of the students offered me ice cream to comfort me, but I didn’t need it and appreciatively declined the offer.

That night, I slept well with no struggle. I didn’t even remember what happened. That memory went off my mind again. I was convinced that it has no bearing on the future. Thanks for deeply internalized meaninglessness, I went through this experience like it was pretty much nothing memorable. I had two firm conclusive thoughts:

1- First, this experience will never impact my sexual life – Guess what? In hindsight, many years later, I was right! It never did, and I have my nihilism to thank for saving my sex life. In a world where everyone defended meaningfulness, I’d say Chaung Zhou’s approach in reaction to the demise of that era was not that wrong after all. I found value in pursuing meaninglessness as opposed to anything else that deemed life valuable. Even though I see myself incredibly stronger now compared to when I was 19, I don’t believe I’d go through that experience unscathed like I did back then if it happens at the present time. I do not have the luxury of internalized meaninglessness anymore as I have so much life in me, so very much. <3

2- The second conclusive thought was that I am not impacted by this experience in any shape or form. Guess what? In hindsight, many years later, I was wrong! Here’s why; A couple of months later, I was gonna go visit home. The plan was to take a flight. I got a taxi ride to the airport. On the way, the driver took a path through some highway that I was not familiar with. A few minutes on that road, out of blue, in a split second, a screaming feeling emerged in me, and I (spoiler: falsely) realized I am abducted. I panic-ed hardcore. I thought about whom I to call. One minute later, the driver took an exit that said to “Airport”. I calmed down a bit and realized I was wrong. To my own absolute surprise, I realized that I was not completely done with that experience even though I was sure it was behind me. Since then, through all the coming year, I have troubles getting in a cab alone, which is why, despite all the problematic practices and implications, I love Uber/Lyft and use them all the fucking time when I am traveling. The thought that the driver is “somewhat” vetted, the thought that the app knows where the driver is, the fact that the app certainly knows where I am, and the fact that the put their phone on display so I can see that they’re following the path on the map and on my phone has kept me calm for many years.

My nihilism and I separated a long while ago. Though I remain forever grateful.

Raven,
Oct, 2024

613 thoughts on “An Ancient Chinese Philosophy Take on Nihilism”

  87. Clustering

    It’s fascinating how a shared interest in philosophy can create such a deep connection between two people. The idea of exploring Eastern philosophy together in a library sounds like a beautiful way to bond. The choice of a book that one would take to an island reveals so much about a person’s values and inner world. The concept of “fucklessness” as described seems like a profound response to chaos and conflict. What do you think the philosopher meant by emphasizing “nothing has form” and how does that apply to modern life? WordAiApi

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