# Introduction to Nihilism

What a daunting word isn't it? Nihilism has always been associated with negativity ever since it's beginning, since it is about "Nothing" after all. However as you're going to see, it is not to be feared, **on the contrary, Nihilism is essential for your own mental health.**

## The Act of Rejecting Something

![alt text](image.png)

You have a TON of Nihilism practices out there (most of which that i dont agree with, to be clear):

- **Political Nihilism:** a negative outlook on existing political and social structures, similar to anarchism.
- **Existential Nihilism:** asserting that life is inherently meaningless and lacks a higher purpose.
- **Moral Nihilism:** rejects the existence of moral phenomena. 
- **Epistemological Nihilism:** rejects the possibility of objective knowledge,
- **Metaphysical Nihilism:** argues that the experience of the universe is a mere illusion without an underlying reality.
- **Cosmic Nihilism:** is the view that reality is unintelligible and lacks inherent meaning.

Essentially, **Nihilism is essentially the act of rejecting something.** That's perfect for us, because there's ALOT of things that that we need to reject nowadays, given how much bullshit is being bombarded at everyone on centralized sources of media.

Nowadays you HAVE TO reject alot of bullshit on a daily basis, **Nihilism is not just a fancy idea, it is an actual practice that you need to implement in your daily life in order to remain mentally sane.** 


## Your mind is a Temple

![alt text](image-1.png)

As we'll cover in the [next tutorial](../nihilism/index.md), your mind is your holy temple. You want to keep it clean, to be able to use it to it's fullest potential.

If you are a religious person, i'm sure you understand what i mean. Would you be willing to go to church to pray or meditate for an hour if the place was dirty from top to bottom ?

Thing is, you are most likely going to be unable to appreciate the subtler aspects of the holy temple if you leave filth at the entrance. **You need to keep it distraction-free to be able to preserve it's sanctity**. 

The goal is not to keep adding more and more stuff to the temple, the goal is to keep rejecting everything that can be rejected until there's nothing left in it.

In your mind, over time, dust settles in, the trash piles up, the filth accumulates. Do you seriously think you can keep your temple holy without ever using the broom ? 

## Nihilism is the Broom that cleans the Temple

![alt text](image-2.png)

As the title suggests, Nihilism as a practice is like a broom, and when it is used properly, you can use it to effectively reject everything you want from your own mind.

In the upcoming tutorials, we're going to cover the use of carefully-crafted mantras that are there to reject all the garbage that may have accumulated in your mind over the years.

## What is the garbage that needs to go ?

Over time, as far as I'm concerned, there are 3 main types of garbage that you need to purge your mind of:

- **Compulsions:** What is making you waste your time doing what doesn't truly matter to you.
- **Beliefs:** What is making you arrogant, stagnate and destroys the possibility of knowing.
- **Identities:** The Ego distorts your perception and prevents you from beyond your own self interest.

If you didn't clean up your mind in a very long time, your mind may have become a very contorted mess. Over time, you may not even realize what is plaguing your life anymore, the more you descend into your own lack of clarity.

![alt text](image-3.png)

In real life, do you picture yourself living like a Hoarder ? I definitely hope not. You need to understand that more is not better. You will not attain infinity by adding, the only way to attain it is by subtracting, to arrive at emptiness.

![alt text](image-5.png)

Less is more. Minimalism has alot of virtue in real life So take a garbage bag, and in it, put everything that has no reason to stay in your bedroom. You're going to realize how pleasant it is to rediscover your own bedroom after it has been thoroughly cleaned up.

The same holds true for your own mind. **If you are letting your compulsions, beliefs and identities pile up over time, you actually are a Hoarder too.**

You are in your own way, You are the problem in your life, You are the only source of actual problems in your life, **You are the only one that needs to change for things to get better.** Do not look elsewhere, the problem is inside, therefore look inward, and apply the solution inside.

## Why Mantras ?

Mantras are essentially sentences that you utter mentally, to alter your mind, one way or the other.

Mantras are either positive or negative. The issue with positive affirmations is that they empower delusional beliefs most of the time, and that would just be worsening the problem.

**The actual solution is negative affirmations** because it is the very act of rejecting something that we are looking for. In our use-case, we are employing mantras to reject compulsions, beliefs and identities.

With enough repetition, **you'll realize that these mantras are tools to effectively rewrite the way you think**, and they are enough to unwind Compulsions, Addictions, Beliefs and Identities, to restore your mental clarity and effectively preserve it.


## Conclusion

And that's it! You now have the context as to understand why Nihilism is essential for your own mental health.