On Nietzsche’s Description of the Nihilistic Void that
exists beyond all Possibility of Meaning.
I recall a lecture given on Nietzsche wherein the professor
described Nietzsche’s journey past all Created Meaning and his confrontation
with the Void that lies beyond existentialism: Nihilism. The professor remarked,
with a subtle grin, that Nietzsche seemed to have conceded to the nihilists
that ultimately the world is without meaning.
I was reminded of one of the most dearly held tokens of
meaning in my life: the video game Spyro the Dragon. The majority of the dreams
that I can recall from childhood took place in this mythic universe, its worlds
created by my Unconscious, surpassing the finitude of the original game.
I imagined this game, too, becoming Meaningless to me. How
could I forsake the almost Human texture of the infinite blue skies, presumed infinite
because I could never fly past them, in the floating castles of Wizard’s Peak?
And what entered my mind was a vivid image, the nostalgia clinging to my mind
as though it clung for dear life over the abyss of its annihiliation. I
remembered Spyro, having run to the peak of a slope and jumped through a circular
window-pane in a mountain cave, soaring out of the mountain with the flame of
friction blistering behind him, prepared to glide to the tiny isle floating
against the backdrop of the sky, its conical base pointed at a deep blue void.
I realized that, were Nietzsche right, I would be at peace,
for the zeal of that leap would always rest in the fear, though not so much the
fear as the refusal, to merely plummet into the Void below or to miss the isle
in flight.
I returned to the computer to write an entry on the very
revelation that had felt so much like such a tragic arc.
It was at that point that I landed upon the isle, feeling as
though I would never disappear into the Void without another chance, and the
Void itself seemed to disappear.
Dm.A.A.
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