I struggle hard with a combination of nihilism and mediocrity

[pelecanus87]

Unfortunately, I believe that Asperger's makes mediocrity much more likely (although not inevitable). Even if you have skills, it's often difficult to advance your career or find relationships with Asperger's.

I also struggle with nihilism.

I find myself having trouble justifying existence with just my worldview alone. Add to that the fact that the odds are greatly stacked against me in life and it's just like..."you might as well give up".

Not sure I've heard many people on here speak about nihilism. Furthermore, I've noticed that many Aspies are content with their place in social life. I differ from this and have a tremendous amount of angst over this, even as an adult.

 

[oregano]

Yeah, I've always been somewhat nihilistic. I have always viewed the world as a very cruel place where the average guy is only valued to the extent that he can make money for and stroke the egos of the permanent ruling class. George Carlin said it best; there's a club and you and I ain't in it.

I've spent the last decade pursuing a dream of being a hermit in a remote area, somebody who most people don't even realize exists. I like the Unabomber's overall philosophy, although I think he was stupid to blow people up, but I can understand why he did it. If he hadn't done the bombings he'd still be in the wilds of Montana, all alone in nature. That's what I want to be, just me and nature.

I realized that I would always be on the outside, so I finally said "screw it" and flipped the bird to a society that thinks I should never have been born, and although I agree I should never have been born I don't like the next step which is gas chambers/ovens.

 

[Gritches]

I'm sorry to hear you're struggling. I carved out my niche socially, but it's not like that didn't take a lot of hard work, which in developing social skills means a whole lot of failing-and-bailing.

I realize of course that nihilism can make it difficult to care enough to keep going. Thing is, I used to be a nihilist in the sense of saying "screw it and screw you, I don't care, it doesn't matter, nothing matters".

I'm still just as much a nihilist today, but I've turned it on it's head to make it serve me; I still say the same sort of thing, but instead I laugh after at how freeing and powerful a "whatever" attitude is.

We're Aspies. We're going to fail a lot, and fail in almost every sense of the word. But failure is also a human condition. Being able to say "whatever, doesn't matter" with a smile and a laugh is pure freedom. It's the purest essence of "not giving a damn", but most people exercise that philosophy wrong and actually give lots of damns.

If you realize that nothing really matters, you're not going to un-realize that. It's whether you choose to allow that to rule you or to take control and make nihilism serve you as a way of not letting crap get to you.

Any perceived flaw can be turned on its head and made into an advantage.

 

[Thinx]

I totally get the issues however like you say oregano there's beauty in the world people can have whether or not they are privileged that's still often accessible. The way I turn it on it's head is to say, this is mine too and no one can stop me enjoying it some of the time it's just there . And it is quite random yet miraculous that the world is there I think. Bizarre and odd and intriguing. I also think it's who you are that matters and how you manage what you are dealt, no one else knows what you have to cope with and they can't judge you.

 

[Mia]

Suppose that I've gone through periods in my life where I've thought nihilistically. In my thirties and onward. Usually when I thought that my life was in some way pointless, when things didn't happen when they should have, or when I expected or wanted them to. Doing many things, and being interested in learning every day of my life, has kept me from depression and self-loathing.

Many people think or believe many of the usual maxims about existence. That they should have done this or that, married, girlfriends, boyfriends, children, home, success. It does not happen for all that many people. In the US for example, 27% (2013) of people live alone.

But it begs the question, if you are a nihilist and believe that life has little meaning, why would being in a relationship be part of your perspective? Or how could you even care about career advancement? Nihilism is skepticism on a grand scale, that little in the world has any real existence or importance.

When I lived in the nihilist mindset for a time, I began to look at the things I'd done in my life. And began to give them more credibility than I had in the past. They were not earth-shattering things, I am no superhero, or millionaire, or world class athlete. I've not cured cancer or reinvented the wheel. Those bars are something we seem to measure all of our accomplishments against no matter how good they are. Who sets those standards? Society does. I refuse to measure my life by those standards. Life is a series of small victories for most people. Looking at them from a another perspective makes them valuable to ourselves.