The Razor's Edge of Nihilism

Do you ever get close to something that’s essential about life and living, or is so beautiful, that just when you notice it you get kind of sad?

This happened to me yesterday when I was talking to a good friend who’s a generous and thoughtful human being.

First, a little background:

He also happens to understand philosophy. You know, like the-hell-is-going-on-around-here-and-who’s-thought-about-and-written-about-that-before-and-what-sense-can-we-actually-make-out-of-any-of-it kind of philosophy.

We caught up for a few minutes about our lives — pleasant. Nice. For instance, I learned he’s dating someone new and it’s going well. He learned that my soup was getting cold while I was trying to get the kids down for bedtime. Bedtime is tedious — its own razor’s edge. Which he now knows, too.

Being on familiar ground, we started talking about our religious faith. We’re both Christians, he being a Catholic and me being a Presbyterian. When I tell you that it couldn’t possibly be more exciting to discuss religion, I mean it. Because our conversations tend to be the kind that transcends the shallow end of a thing.

So, we’re discussing this tension we both feel where often what we are doing with our lives and with our time doesn’t really seem to matter in light of a loving God, being fully first and in all things and people. The are whole universes in you.

If you’ve ever rubbed elbows with a government service you know what I’m talking about: “Why am I standing in this DMV line when the beauty of God/the universe is in me and I in it?” kind of thoughts. What do these things matter if I’m not living every moment in the awareness that this is all fundamentally fragile and beautiful and can can alter my complete existence for the better if I would just give in and let my soul be touched?

So my friend called this, “the razor’s edge of nihilism.” The point where you see through everything else and see the thing that is most beautiful and most real about your life or about the objective function of the World.

Razor’s edge because the line is so fine that it either feels euphoric or painful.

Nihilism because it’s quite easy to want to do a Hollywood shirt rip because you feel it so deeply that once you realize standing in that DMV line doesn’t matter, you begin to consider what other things feel like “nihil”, “nothing”. Those are hard thoughts.

Basically, the whole world (84% as of 2010) is religious in some fashion but nobody really seems to like talking about it. Why is that? It’s pretty sanitized and institutionalized — to introduce the ize’s — and there’s not a lot of adventure or heart there. But as far as things all human beings have in common with one another, the choice to be religious is like the top one. Yet it’s the weirdest and most most awkward thing we kind of get into, not to mention the fact that we can be pretty mean and violent about it.

But when I talk to my friend, it’s absolutely exciting. He asks me what my spiritual practice has been like. Pretty wonky and hard to follow for the most part — the actual practice (prayer/meditation) — but I’ve had a closeness to God recently, through my church in part, that I haven’t felt in years! To me, this is funny timing. In the last 15+ years, the most populous countries in the world are becoming less religious, principally among the richest.

To us both, faith and following is actually getting more exciting as the world is less interested.

That is driven by the razor’s edge. The reality that in any moment, love, generosity, friendship, or hope can come through and make you into more than you can ever make yourself into. It’s what is possible that can be just as beautiful as what is beautiful.

Visakan Veerasamy, my favorite follow on X/Twitter recently, has this book I’m reading called Friendly Ambitious Nerd. In one part, he says:

“Do we allow life to surprise us?”
“Because everything we think we know is a tiny fragment of the world.”

Do I posture myself so that I skate up to the razor’s edge of nihilism as often as possible, see it’s beauty and the fragility of “nihil” and then still stand strong in the DMV line, seeing the beauty in it too?

That’s the question.

It is not nothing.
It is everything.