I am an ultimate nihilist about anything social when I realize that none of it is necessarily true; for example, I could write a great novel, but if it is not popular, it will not be read, let alone sell, and will be forgotten. Or anything that is human is merely so because humans are part of nature and nature is the way it is regardless if there is any reason or truth to it.

We act according to ourselves but we can’t answer thoroughly the question of what we are, and even less thoroughly the question of why we are, so that when a man is ever asked, “Why did you do that?” He can merely say that it seemed to be the thing to do, given what seems to be, but he cannot make any logical statements about whether his action was right or truthful—and that, makes me a nihilist.

For what are we acting? Except for a blind trust that what seems to be, according to which we act, is somehow intelligently designed. In most ways, this is the only bet we have. Like we are sat down at the gambling table with a stack of chips and the chips are no good for playing anywhere else; not to mention, we don’t know of any other tables. So we sit and gamble our best until our chips run out or we have all the chips at the table; the game ends either way. And if we happen to end with all the chips, we have only a fool’s hope that having all the chips was the way to win, when having no chips at all may have just as well been the object of the game.

So I toss my chips for amusement and watch them bounce and dance off the table and try to make pleasant conversation with my table mates in the meantime, maybe even have a cigarette and give a kiss to the woman that plays to my left.

The game seems to have a design—rules, players, a dealer, and an objective. But if I don’t know what the chips spend for, I’m just as interested in the leather and felt of the table, the dress of my table mates, and other things that seem to interest me for no reason other than they do. And if not for these amusements I might get bored with no option for another table or different game; only the option of no game at all, or to get up from my chair and walk over in the direction of the dark and out of the light from the one light bulb that hangs above the table, connected to a power source above that I cannot see.