No meaning without justification

Thank you for sharing this interesting article. I'm currently working on some literary analysis that deals with theories of purpose (anywhere from ancient/teleological to postmodern/posthuman) and often find myself remarking on the complexity of the philosophical structures in the material, especially as they so often lead to dead ends. But it doesn't always need to be that deep.

I think I'll start saying, "The tomatoes made me do it" when I'm asked to justify myself over the mundane.

If someone asked why you were singing in the shower, you would come up with some meaningless generic “justification” like “I enjoy it” or “it’s a habit, I guess” or “for fun.” Or you might be slightly peeved, because it’s a dumb question that the asker should know can’t have a meaningful answer.

I presume there is a reason that "I enjoy it" is considered meaningless in this context, but I well and truely think it's the proper counter to nihilism. Life should be about enjoyment, and that we all strive to live our lives as such.

Or rather, when looking at the reality of our pitiful, meaningless existence, we should able to say: "So what?"

We get one life, and then we cease to be. We should enjoy that life, and perhaps strive to extend it, because we enjoy it so much. The problem comes when empathy takes a backseat to individualism. Perhaps if we all strive to maximize happiness of both the self and the group, we wouldn't need go rationalize our existence and enjoy it.