December 13, 2010

1,905 Page Suicide Note Reveals a Case of Nihilism


On September 18, 2010 a 35-year-old man named Mitchell Heisman from Somerville, Massachusetts shot himself at Harvard Yard in Cambridge. His suicide note was 1,905 pages long and was published at suicidenote.info, a website he created arguing history, politics, religion and death.

A quick look through the contents of the note show that Mitchell was a Nihilist who logically followed through with his philosophy. Since Nihilism reduces everything to absurdity and is by nature self-refuting, it destroys any value in meaning, purpose and even existence itself. When meaning and purpose are destroyed, an honest Nihilist will then have no choice but to destroy himself. Everything ends in nothingness for the Nihilist. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: "That there is no truth; that there is no absolute state of affairs - no 'thing-in-itself.' This alone is Nihilism, and of the most extreme kind".

Read more here.