'Everything Everywhere All at Once' and the meaning of life

Introduction

So, I recently watched the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once and though it's received widespread critical acclaim as a great movie, I didn't quite like it as much as I feel the myriad of people around me did. Now don't get me wrong, I think as a narrative it ties all the small ends it introduces masterfully, the humor though catered to an older demographic does land and the performances/music etc. were great (seemed great to me as a layman, I'm not knowledgeable enough to pick it apart). What I take issue with is the philosophy it pushes forward - optimistic nihilism. And just in case it wasn't clear, this opinion is entirely my own and you might disagree.

Nihilism and Absurdism

The movie makes the point accurately that we continuously undergo more Copernican shifts which displace us farther from our self conceptions of having a central place in the universe. At one point even explicitly stating this sentiment in dialogue. It gives Optimistic Nihilism as the answer to meaningless from perceived insignificance whose main propositions may be stated as follows (The first three propositions are same for nihilism and Optimistic Nihilism):-

(O)N1: my existence is insignificant in the grand scale of things.

(O)N2: there is no objective meaning to the world.

(O)N3: THEREFORE my existence must also be meaningless

ON4: But that's okay, strength is being cheerful, compassionate, empathetic towards others and life even though nothing might matter

This is the movie's answer, but it lacks one critical insight.

Meaning isn't something to be received or intellectualized, but constructed. Constructing meaning from the objects of our experience is a responsibility each person has to undertake themselves. This is a lifelong process, as the medium through which we create meaning keeps changing. It requires consistent dedication to do so, but since most people are lazy we want others to do this work for us.

Nihilism is a sort of cognitive heuristic to justify this laziness. The people who have bleak and nihilistic views are most often those who have seen enough suffering to be disillusioned by the meaning others give them, however they are too lazy or afraid to create something themselves (as I have been and some times find myself there again). 

It is an overgeneralization, saying that since the current method of finding meaning turned out to be an illusion, all methods must be illusions, however there is no basis for this assumption.

Absurdism on the other hand is better described by the following

A1: my existence is insignificant

A2: there is no objective meaning to the world

A3: whenever I seek to try to find meaning, I end up in an uncomfortable place, the gap between my efforts to create meaning and the manifest meaninglessness

A4: THEREFORE in an act of cosmic defiance, I can create meaning in this continuous struggle to create meaning and the meaninglessness of the universe. 'one must imagine Sisyphus happy'

This approach at least takes responsibility for creating it's own meaning from experience, however it's basic presuppositions aren't far from those of nihilism. This is why I think that absurdist are pretty much nihilists who are not tired or have some sense of responsibility.

The movie, though described as absurdist comedy, actually represents optimistic nihilism. Optimistic Nihilism is pretty close to the best approximation which the current paradigm allows, but it has some glaring flaws which I will come back to later.

Dogma and Nihilism

Now that I've described both of those points of view, I also want to critique what they are responses to. Absurdism or nihilism are often responses to disillusionment from the dogma of grand religious or socio political narratives. 

D1: my life is insignificant

D3: THEREFORE it is meaningless alone

D2: there is objective meaning to life because x (x= anything) and by devotion to x, I am involved in something bigger than myself so my life can finally have meaning.

Adopting nihilism gives us the moral superiority obtained by confronting harder truths of life. "I may be nihilistic about life, but at least I don't have to delude myself by believing in x", but functionally speaking, there is no difference between someone who accepts dogma and someone who is disillusioned yet does not create something themselves. 

Insignificant = Meaningless?

I don't quite agree with going from the conclusion of perceived insignificance to abject meaninglessness. In the previously described conception of meaning, it is something one assigns to the world and creates from the objects of their own experience, the unique relation between the individual and the whole. Most people in the world are either adhering to some objective meaning through dogma, or get caught up by trying to intellectualize creating meaning. Asking someone "what is the meaning of life?" is inherently worthless because it is biased towards assuming that meaning can be conveyed in symbols and signs, which is nothing but another form of slave morality as Nietzsche would say. It mirrors the domination of propositional knowledge and analytical thought in society over other forms of knowledge, action, intuition, beauty etc. Considering meaning as the unique relation you have with the whole, one may begin to realize that the absolute responsibility of constructing meaning lies on them alone. Trying to understand it is a different matter, yet whenever intellectualization or blind faith is turned towards constructing meaning, it is an abdication of responsibility.

Though this conception of meaning may seem contrary to mainstream attitudes, but even analytical thought is finally turning towards confirming the fact that there's no actual difference between you and the whole (or a very deep connection at the very least).

Optimistic Nihilism- A critique

This is where optimistic nihilism comes in. Optimistic nihilism is like a theory which incorporates the correct prescriptions, while making the wrong observations. Most proponents of this philosophy are from materialistic, athiestic "naked world" paradigms. Our theories strip the world of all its beauty, and see it as interactions of theoretical constructs designed to predict its behavior, but we are then surprised when we find everything fragmented and in turmoil. Optimistic nihilism incorporates the correct prescriptions (e.g. being nice or grateful to people and animals, not destroying the environment etc.) while not adopting the immediate and absolute responsibility (obtained from being a part of the whole) or changing the underlying assumptions about reality (fragmentations and mechanisms are theoretical constructs of our faculties to understand the behavior of reality and not reality in itself). It's only justification for this, is the inherent striving towards good ("If nothing matters anyway, why not do some good before you die?").

This is a flimsy justification for all action derived from this philosophy, and it gives the followers an out when things get tough (and a way to fall into victimhood). "I must stay optimistic no matter how hard life gets, but goddamn is it difficult when everything around me bad" rings unsurprisingly similar to "Why does God gives me the hardest struggles". 

Notwithstanding the fact that this optimism isn't bound to stay without any justification at all, and when the things get tough a so called optimistic nihilist may just spiral into pessimistic or sociopathic nihilism, there is also the question of why the optimistic nihilist doesn't explore the very urge towards good they feel. This urge towards "the good" which they feel and act in accordance with, provides them with a sense of meaning, yet in their masochism and deception they purposely denigrate it to nothing at all. This is why I feel rather distanced from this philosophy. 

My answer.

To restate what I said at the beginning of this post, this blog and everything is of course totally my opinion, and also any answer I give is useless to you etc. etc. (all the disclaimers you need) But here is my answer anyways.

I see life as a progressive unfolding of that whole and by your very existence there is a certain relationship you have to all objects. Existence not only precedes essence, but it is in fact essence itself. So the meaning of life is to live it and to live it fully, so that whatever is expressing itself through you can be actualized.