Meaningless, Nihilism, and the Imagination
That which makes life living cannot be seen or measured. It exists in a realm invisible to the eyes.
There is a world unseen, that lies within and beneath this one. There are realities that cannot be revealed by the five senses. Though, our obsession with the physical world obscures this deeper and more enchanting reality.
Far too many people, these days, suffer deeply within our modern world. Nihilism, depression, anxiety, and all manner of mental illnesses are at an all-time high. We try to manage the negative symptoms of this mental suffering, though the trend continues. Even in those individuals for whom psychiatric medications help (already a small minority), this is only symptomatic treatment. The underlying problem that gives rise to all these mental forms of anguish continues to fester unaddressed. The pandemic of mental illness continues.
It is certainly a positive development that our culture has more openness to discussing mental health issues, though the way we talk about it is far too limited. Too often, we seem to view mental illness as some sort of personal failure or genetic defect. It’s about balancing hormones, faulty wiring in the brain, or neurochemical imbalance. We treat the individual as if they have a problem that can be fixed with the right kind of psychological engineering. Even the most cutting-edge forms of therapy tend to treat the person with a mental illness as an isolated individual—divorced from their social fabric, their relationships with their loved ones, and their place within their local ecology. Thus, we view the individual as the problem and ignore the greater systemic factors.
Though with the numbers continuing to rise, it is obvious that our mental health crisis is not a crisis of individuals, but a crisis of our society—our culture. Our culture makes people suffer. This may not even be an illness, but an appropriate response to an empty existence within a failing civilization. Treating individuals alone will never help them. If it does, it will only be because those individuals then change their world.
We live in a world of meaninglessness. We focus on shallow, superficial realities, utterly ignorant of the deeper flowing of life. Distracted by the spectacle of reality television, YouTube, and all the rest; we miss out on what is truly essential. We humans are not meant to live this way—senses bombarded by endless stimulation. Our attention is not meant to be trained solely upon the world of appearances. We have always been dreaming beings: beings of myth, story, imagination, and meaning. While we have always inhabited physical landscapes, those same landscapes were imbued with rich personal and spiritual significance. Now, as we walk through our artificial structures and urban landscapes—we live in a spiritually dead world. The white walls, the cookie-cutter homes hold nothing of significance. They are structures without a story.
When a person works for 40 years at a job that does not stir their heart—what response is there but depression? When a person has to race to keep up with the demands of their work, their bills, their family—what response is there but anxiety? When a person spends most days doing the same monotonous tasks only to find reprieve in a weekend of partying—what response is there but nihilism?
We can judge these people for living obviously unhealthy lifestyles, but can we truly blame them? This is what our culture prepares us for. This is what we are taught to pursue. There is nothing rich or significant towards which we are taught to orient our lives. We are taught that our very existence is the pinnacle of creation. There is no greater purpose. Thus, we worship comfort and security above all else. Our hearts wither, devoid of passion and soul.
What we have been ignoring as a civilization is a realm that is invisible to our eyes, but very real to our minds and our hearts: the world of myth and of story. Not just the myths we hear of angels and demons in a long-distant past, but the myths of our present-day lives as we live them. We are not taught to live within stories of our lives that inspire or fascinate us. We live boring stories with uninteresting outcomes and become disinterested in our very own lives. The Soul of us leaves us and despondency sets in.
I urge you to set down and write down your life story as you know it—not a recounting of the experiences of your past—but the story that you are living today. Focus not on the physical particularities: your job, your location, your achievements. Rather, focus on what is deep and meaningful to you: your art, your passion, your longing, your struggle. What are the thoughts and feelings that stir your heart and inspire your mind? What are the demons and struggles that you are called upon to fight? What is the dream and vision you carry that is truly worth living for? It may be hard to access these things, though I’m sure that they are there. Human history reveals this: we are a storied people.
There were cultures in the past that honored the powerful invisibles of life. In fact, just about all of them have before the modern era. It has only been in our materialist arrogance that we have exiled the rich and imaginative world to the realm of childishness or hollow entertainment. Though, we can resurrect this world. And our ailing hearts demand it.
We can medicate ourselves into submission to combat our anxiety and depression, or we can resurrect our dreams and our longings and make life worth living again. The imagination is calling us. It is up to our choice whether we answer the call.
Do we suffer meaningless lives, devoid of passion or purpose?
Or do we reengage the imaginative realm and become good storytellers again?