Nihilism Leads to the Deathtrap of Despair; Or, Why Faith and Hope Are Crucial

My novel, The City of Earthly Desire, deals with many themes, chief among them the problem of nihilism brought about by a culture that has turned its back on all sense of meaning, religion, and tradition in the blind belief that materialism and the pursuit of pleasure alone provide for and fulfill all of humanity's needs.

The problem is they don't. 

Possessions end up possessing you and no matter how much you love them, they do not and cannot return your love. Pleasure, though quixotically addictive and fun, tends to fade rather quickly. The void left behind immediately demands newer and newer pleasures until, ironically, the idea of pleasure recoils back upon itself, becomes utterly perverted, and becomes saturated with sadism.

What is left after the possessions turn cold and the pleasures run black? In all honesty, not much. Nothing, in fact. This point marks the border of nihilism, the vast poisonous belief desert of nothingness which inevitably leads to despair. What is despair? Amnesia of meaning. Abandonment of hope. Rejection of faith. Past societies had built-in safety mechanisms to combat such existential crises, but modern societies have contempuously cast these aside thinking, rather foolishly, that the fight against despair is one they would never have to fight and, in the unforeseen event that they would, that materialism and pleasure would provide them with the weapons needed to win the battle. 

The problem is, they haven't. 

This why the rediscovery of faith and hope are crucial. They are the only things that can, not only save us, but also give us lives that are worth living. Even if we are defeated, we go down swinging or, at the very least we go down smiling, which is far more noble and human than allowing darkness to corrode us before simply cratering in on ourselves and existentially imploding.

Faith is a deep sense, seemingly bottomless, that despite so-called evidence to the contrary, absolutes exist. And hope is the undying belief that these absolutes will ultimately triumph, regardless of how bleak and meaningless the present might appear. Both are crucial and both are needed, perhaps now more than ever.