Mind & Heart – 1: The Existential Crisis and the Collapse of Meaning

The Necessity of Nihilism’s Appearance

The contemporary crisis in mental health is not merely a matter of personal struggles or biochemical imbalances. The rising prevalence of depression, anxiety, and despair coincides with the dissolution of once-dominant narratives of meaning. This is no accident but part of a necessary unfolding. The decline of religious, philosophical, and communal structures that once provided a sense of permanence and purpose has been an inevitable stage in the historical appearing of thought. As these frameworks recede, what remains is the stark confrontation with nihilism—the belief that existence lacks inherent meaning, order, or necessity.

This sense of displacement—of being lost in an indifferent universe—does not arise solely from external conditions. It stems from a deeper assumption embedded in modern thought: the notion that being is contingent, that nothing is necessary, and that all things are fleeting. This assumption, once accepted, inevitably unfolds into uncertainty, fear, and existential dread.

Psychology’s Encounter with Nihilism

As this crisis intensifies, psychology and psychiatry attempt to respond, yet they remain bound by the same assumptions that underlie the crisis itself. The dominant materialist paradigm, which seeks to explain human experience solely in terms of brain chemistry and external influences, fails to recognize the deeper structure of suffering. While various psychological models offer coping mechanisms, they rarely address the root of despair—the belief in the transience and contingency of the self.

This is not to dismiss the contributions of psychology, but to acknowledge its limitations. As long as prevailing frameworks operate within the horizon of nihilism—treating human existence as an ephemeral accident rather than a necessary manifestation of Being—the contradictions of suffering will persist.

The Self and the Belief in Becoming

At the heart of this crisis is the experience of self-loss. Modern individuals are conditioned to see themselves as fluid and impermanent, tasked with constructing and maintaining an identity in an ever-changing world. This belief in becoming—the idea that the self is something that emerges, transforms, and ultimately disappears—generates profound instability. If one’s being is not necessary, then fear, anxiety, and the relentless need for self-affirmation are inevitable. The self becomes a project to sustain rather than a reality to recognize.

Yet within this turmoil, a deeper necessity begins to reveal itself. The belief in becoming is not merely unsettling—it is internally contradictory. To recognize impermanence already implies a vantage point outside of it. If the self were truly in flux, without continuity, there would be no stable perspective from which to witness its change. This points to a deeper truth: what appears as instability is itself contained within the permanence of Being.

Suffering, then, is not an arbitrary consequence of nihilism, nor merely a psychological burden to overcome. It plays a necessary role in the unfolding of truth. The sense of self-loss is not proof that the self is truly lost but the prelude to its recognition as an eternal necessity within Being. This recognition does not occur instantaneously, nor can it be imposed—it unfolds in accordance with the logic of necessity, revealing order within what once seemed like chaos.

As the crisis of meaning deepens, it clears the way for an unavoidable realization: Being is not contingent, nothing is truly lost, and even suffering belongs to a greater appearing in which its contradiction is already resolved. The response to nihilism, then, is not to escape it or construct artificial narratives of meaning, but to allow the necessary unfolding of truth to appear. What seems like despair is not a dead end but a threshold—the prelude to a deeper unveiling.