Eternal Nihlistic Recurrence

There are two forces acting within me. Two parts of me.

My anxiety, my sadness, has spurred me to continue writing my novel and throw myself into music production. This has been going well, but it's only been two days. These two days have effectively allowed me to scratch an itch. Now that's it's been scratched a part of me thinks "We can relax, there is no urgency."

I find that my creative process tends to make large strides in the beginning but then slows down as the low hanging fruit are picked. Or perhaps it's because of a creative sort of fatigue. Here we have the motivator of the second voice that says, "Things are getting tough, maybe skip today. Besides, you have x, y and z that you have to get done."

Interspersed in the request to stop are truths. I am unsure of how to develop a song further. I'm at that point where the obvious moves have been made. I also have a job. I have laundry. I have to merge phone contracts. I have to go out for a walk and write in my journal. I have to go to the gym. I have to see my therapist. I have to cook. And so on and so forth. I've also quit smoking and so have to contend with the annoyance of nicotine withdrawal.

So on the one hand I have much to do. On the other, what had been an a solution to deal with anxiety may very well become a source of anxiety.

I do not know what I can do beyond being aware of this dynamic. Awareness at least leads me to other questions: Am I writing to scratch the existential itch? Are literature and music just alternative distractions away from a nihilist reality?

I wish I could answer with a definite "No!" and feel secure in my answer. Though perhaps it'd be more appropriate to ask a question back: "Does it matter if it were?" At least these distractions are more sustainable than say, hedonistic, sadistic or masochistic indulgences.

All action may ultimately boil down to pointlessly struggling to keep a pointless happening going on and on (pointless because the game must end and because the game itself is pointless). But some actions appear to me to be more to my taste aesthetically.

Take Bukowski, for example. His depraved lifestyle reads like a nightmare to me whenever I really place myself in his shoes. The thought of waking up with a hangover, scrambling for the next fix,... Gross. And yet, there is beauty in the fact that this man is living as he wants to, society be damned, self preservation be damned, and has written engaging stories that will endure as a result.

So a pointless game this may be, but I feel like I have a choice as to how I ought to play. After all, if it it's pointless, what does it matter anyhow? Is there an "objective" justification to not be a psychopath or a sociopath? One can argue not. Yet the vast majority of us do not turn into murderous rapists the moment we have a mid life crisis. Such a life would be ugly. I also doubt psychopaths and sociopaths base their actions on a nihilist outlook a priori, though it certainly makes sense to use the viewpoint and hoc to justify oneself in one's own eyes (though why one should bother in the first place is unresolved).

So where does this leave me? I'm writing a song. I'm writing a novel. I have other things I want to do and I'm unsure of what to do first. I'll figure it out, and an unsatisfactory result is part of the process of figuring it out.