It’s a hard sell, asking someone to give a damn nowadays.
We’re all watching the ongoing enshittification of everything—the job market, all our societal institutions, even the weather is worse for wear. International relations break down overnight, and who knows if NATO will outlast 2026. We wonder whether World War III is on the horizon while every day brings another barrage of bad news to test our sanity.
So, I don’t blame people for opting to disassociate from reality. In a world on fire, empathy is the gateway to hell. It’s only natural to turn to apathy in an act of self-preservation, but that choice comes at the cost of our shared humanity.
Our youth have resigned themselves to submissive nihilism. They grew up watching their forebearers kick the crisis-can down a road that leads nowhere. Now, we have children who don’t believe they have a future, because when they look at the world, they see decay, destruction, and death.
What’s the point?
When I find myself lingering on that question, I revisit this book called Man’s Search for Meaning. It was written by Viktor Frankl, a psychologist who managed to maintain his faith in humanity while detained in a concentration camp during World War II. His experience puts a lot of things in perspective for me, particularly my existential dread.
It came as a shock to learn that his situation was avoidable. Frankl didn’t have to go to that concentration camp. This man had a way out through an employment-based immigration visa, but he chose to stay in Vienna even though he saw what was coming.
Frankl chose to stay for his family, then he lost them to those camps. He thought he also lost the last semblance of a higher purpose when the manuscript for his book was confiscated at the disinfection chambers upon entering Auschwitz. Later, when typhus infected most of the camp, he kept himself sane by reconstructing his manuscript through key words on scraps of paper. He made his life’s work happen there at death’s door.
People get hung up on nihilism’s proposition that life has no meaning, overlooking that we create our own sense of purpose. Throughout his book, Frankl quoted the father of nihilism, a German philosopher by the name of Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote, “He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.” Frankl watched the other prisoners cycle between states of hope and apathy. He noted that those who survived were the ones who found meaning in their suffering and through it, the will to live.
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way,” Frankl wrote. “And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.”
Pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the world outside looks dark, then it’s up to us to embody the light. After all, we are made of stardust; to shine is our birthright. The worst thing you can do is allow that divine spark to dim, because this world needs your light. There’s no sugar-coating it: deciding to give a damn is going to hurt like hell. A shift in attitude reveals that these are the growing pains that constitute courage. In this world of suffering, the bravest thing you can do is open your heart.
If you’re going through hell, keep going. Find out why you’re here, why you burn, why your suffering matters. Don’t ask, “What is the meaning of life?” and expect someone else to tell you. No one can. Besides, that question is not yours to ask. That is the question that life asks you every day.
Never forget that you are free to choose how you answer.
