The Art of Living a Meaningless Existence: Ideas from Philosophy That Change the Way You Think

by Robert Pantano

At a very young age, life seems to be mostly candy, playgrounds, cartoon mice, and fun. The universe feels like it is made for us. Throughout childhood, things in popular culture like movies, TV shows, and advertising reinforce this hopeful optimism by selling us ideals of a life filled with easy friendships, love at first sight, exciting lifestyles, successful and fulfilling careers, and cool products that will all culminate in a perfect, smooth life. Of course, as we grow further past our youthful innocence, the world increasingly reveals itself to be far more complicated and convoluted. As we experience more of life, and we are continually disappointed by our optimism’s inability to align with the real conditions of the world, our optimism is beaten further and further into submission. At this point, the individual is often compelled to surrender any form of naïve optimism and replace it with some degree of pessimism. Arguably, any honestly examined life goes through this transition. At first, this might sound rather somber and bleak, and if we stop here, it very well can be. However, with the proper consideration, perhaps there is a way in which we can leverage this pessimism and use it to our advantage. Perhaps there is a way through pessimism that leads to an adapted and more reasonable optimism—not the sort of delusional optimism that is ignorant to the somber truths of our condition, but rather, an optimism that exists in spite of it all.