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The Authentic Eclectic
Nihilist’s Cake
She paced before Lily and turned to her with a quick step, her eyes flashing.
“You always resort to nihilism when things become uncomfortable; here, you are faced with a tragedy, but rather than experience deep pain, you retreat to these tired, grandiose statements about the meaninglessness of existence.”
Lily sat in a white metal lawn chair with her arms crossed, watching Emi through half-lidded eyes.
“And you say that I’m emotional,” she continued, glancing between Lily’s reptilian stare and her own gesticulating hands, “that I’m affected by everything, and that I am afraid of suffering; but at least I face my fears by expressing and confronting them, whereas you conceal them behind this wall of — of proud, morbid acceptance of emptiness and death, just so that nothing can cause you despair, fooling yourself and nobody else, least of all me.”
She paused, chest heaving with fluttering gasps like a bird.
“What is this really about?” Lily asked.
“You, living your life in utter self-deception, which causes pain to those around you because you cannot consider them as whole persons without impaling yourself! Oh, today is it Nietzsche, or Wittgenstein? You’ll grasp at anything to justify it — to justify your cowardice. If it…
