Meaning in life

To the letter, I might be a nihilist. I do accept it as a philosophical term, but I don't think that you are necessarily a nihilist if you don't think life itself has any meaning.
Any person is an individual and as such we add values to our lives and therefore nihilism as a philosophical stance can be discussed, but on a personal level I don't think any individual can truly be a nihilist.

 

Yes---it is difficult to be truly nihilist at a personal level---I think people can be afflicted with nihilism, where they are not nihilist by choice, and would rather not be. I think that there are people who commit suicide who are afflicted with nihilism, and then there are a few who are truly nihilistic at a philosophical and individual level.

Most definitely you can see life as without meaning and still not be a nihilist. I feel that we live in a nihilistic age where we have largely lost meaning to life, but I still think life is full of meaning (though the meaning many try to place on it is overly abstract, reductionist, and universally meaningless). I agree with you in that meaning is incredibly subjective and very much dependent on the individual. I feel that the only universal meaning there can be----is simply, 'to experience.'

I prefer though to look at nihilism, in the way you refer to it as something we can talk about, as more of a philosophical examination of a condition. Rather than saying that I am a nihilist, I would say that I examine the nihilistic condition of the Modern and Post-Modern Age for example.

In this way I am a bit of a purist, along the lines of what Kierkegaard and a few others believed philosophers should be---if I were to take on a nihilism as a philosophy of my own, I would have to then accept its deeper, and more consuming implications, otherwise, it would not be nihilism but something akin to it---probably labeling it as something combining the word nihilism with something else.

 

I believe Hunter S. Thompson said it best...
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”