So here you are, kid. Drowning in TikTok dances and the endless dopamine hits from memes, and you think you’ve got it all figured out.

You’re riding the wave of your short attention span, searching for meaning in all the wrong places. You say you’re woke, but you don’t even know what it means to wake up.

Yeah, you see the hashtag #existentialcrisis every now and then, but you’re too busy living in a world that doesn’t care about you to even think about it.

I see you. I know what’s going on behind that pixelated smile, the fake optimism, the therapy session posts. You’re running from the truth, but it’s coming for you like a freight train.

You see, the problem is that you’re trying to escape something you can’t outrun.

It’s not the anxiety about your future, or the imposter syndrome you pretend to ignore, or the relentless tide of societal expectations.

It’s much deeper than that. It’s the raw, gnawing realization that you are, in fact, nothing but a fleeting speck of dust in this godforsaken universe.

You want a solution?

I’m here to tell you, there’s no quick fix. No Insta-quote will save you. No podcast will drop the truth bomb you need.

But there’s a man, a broken Russian writer named Fyodor Dostoevsky, who saw through all the illusions. He looked into the abyss and didn’t flinch. And guess what? He died staring into that abyss.

Dostoevsky didn’t give you some shiny self-help advice. No. He cracked open the human soul, pulled out the rotten bits, and shoved them in your face.

He showed you the darkness that your “life hack gurus” keep ignoring. He saw it all—the despair, the guilt, the search for meaning. But he didn’t run. That’s why you need to listen to him.

You can either face your own goddamn darkness or keep running like a scared dog, hoping the next viral trend will distract you long enough.

Nihilism = Death Sentence (speaking from experience)

Here’s the ugly truth: you’re already living in nihilism. You just don’t have the guts to admit it yet.

You know what nihilism is, right? It’s the belief that life has no inherent meaning. That everything you’re doing, every little thing, every hour you spend perfecting your selfie, is just… random.

A cosmic joke. Dostoevsky saw it coming before you were even born. He knew that once you ripped away the comforting illusions of religion, morality, and purpose, you’d be left in a cold, empty void.

But that void is a hell of your own making.

You think you’re smarter than everyone who came before you, right? You’ve got your philosophy memes, your podcast episodes with that smug guy talking about how the universe is made of energy.

All the bullshit, without understanding the real suffering beneath it.

Yeah, you might talk about “manifesting” your dreams and believe in crystals, but deep down, you know something’s missing. You might call it anxiety or depression. But it’s something much worse: It’s a gnawing, bottomless hole where meaning used to be.

This hole was filled with hope once. Back in the day, people had religion to lean on, or at least some kind of collective understanding of their purpose.

Not anymore. Now, it’s just you, alone in the dark, trying to fill the void with memes and distraction. And when the distraction stops—when you’re alone with your thoughts—that’s when you feel it. I

t’s the creeping sensation that everything is meaningless.

Dostoevsky knew this. He knew that once you let go of the old world, you’ll be left with nothing but chaos.

And you’ll have two choices: either accept it and face the abyss, or turn your back on it and get lost in the meaningless noise of modern life.

Table 1: Nihilism vs. Hope – The Battle

Concept	Nihilism	Hope
Outlook on Life	Life is absurd, a meaningless accident.	Life is what you make of it. You can carve out your own meaning.
Emotional Impact	Despair, numbness, emptiness.	Engagement, purpose, growth.
Solution to Crisis	Escape into distractions or numbness.	Confront the void and create something out of it.
Spiritual Path	There is no higher power.	There’s something greater than yourself—whether that’s God, love, or inner truth.
The Future	It doesn’t matter. All is chaos.	You create your own destiny.

The Trap of Gen Z

Let’s break it down, Gen Z style: Nihilism is like a poison. You sip on it every time you tell yourself that nothing really matters, that the system is broken, and that you’re just here for a good time, not a long time.

The thing is, you can’t drink poison and not expect it to kill you slowly.

Look at Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov—he’s your poster child for nihilism. Here’s a guy who thinks he’s too smart for the world. He believes he’s above the rules. He commits murder to prove he’s a man who transcends morality. But what happens? His mind unravels. He’s not a transcendent hero; he’s just a broken, guilt-ridden mess.

And that’s you, kid. You think you’re above it all. You think you can hack your way through life, ignore the consequences, and still come out on top.

But that’s not how it works. If you follow that path, you’re heading straight for a breakdown—emotional, mental, spiritual. And it won’t be pretty.

Table 2: Famous Thinkers and Their Takes on Meaning

Thinker/Creator	View on Life’s Meaning	Relevance to Gen Z
Fyodor Dostoevsky	Life is about confronting suffering and finding spiritual meaning.	Life is brutal, but through suffering, we transcend.
Nietzsche	Life is meaningless, but we can create our own meaning.	Embrace chaos, create your own path.
Albert Camus	Life is absurd, but we must rebel against it by finding personal meaning.	Reject nihilism, find your purpose despite the void.
Alan Watts	Life is a cosmic dance—let go of control, experience the moment.	Life is fleeting, so live fully in the present.
Jordan Peterson	Life has meaning, but it requires responsibility and sacrifice.	Find order, take responsibility, and build your life.

The Illusion of Escape: Mysticism and the Cosmic Lie

Ah, I hear it—the siren call of mysticism.

You’ve dabbled in it, haven’t you? Tarot cards, crystal healing, astrology. You’ve convinced yourself that the universe is trying to tell you something.

It’s funny, really—how easy it is to chase after a mystical explanation for your existential problems rather than deal with the raw truth that stares you in the face.

You want to feel connected to something greater, like there’s some cosmic plan behind the mess of your life. But let me tell you something: The universe doesn’t care about your problems. It doesn’t have a grand plan for you.

I’ve spent years reading about this mystical stuff—about energy fields, synchronicity, quantum mechanics, and the idea that we’re all connected.

And yeah, it’s nice. It’s comforting to think that there’s some bigger picture. But when the smoke clears and you’re staring at the mess in your own life, it doesn’t mean jack shit.

The mystical explanations won’t save you. They’ll only distract you from the hard, painful truth that you have to face your own reality.

You have to create meaning out of nothing, or you’ll be swallowed whole by the abyss.

Explain it Like I’m 10

Let’s simplify. Imagine you’re playing a video game. But here’s the thing: it’s a game where the rules don’t matter. There’s no purpose to it. The levels are just random, the characters are just computer programs, and there’s no end goal. It’s like you’re running on a treadmill that goes nowhere. That’s nihilism.

Now, you can either give up on the game because it’s pointless, or you can decide to play it your way. You can make your own rules, create your own adventure, even if the game doesn’t have a clear finish line. The choice is yours.

Gen Z, Wake Up (final words)

You think you’re free, don’t you? You’ve got your apps, your notifications pinging like a crack addict in withdrawal, the world at your fingertips, all wrapped up in pretty little screens.

But let’s get one thing straight—you’re not free.

You’ve been sold a bill of goods, my friend. Gen Z, you’re nothing but a cog in a machine designed to churn out profit, and that machine doesn’t care about your soul.

Hell, it doesn’t even care about you as a human being. All it wants is more. More money, more clicks, more likes.

And you? You’re stuck in the middle, caught between a system that’s rigged to feed the top and leave you starving. The rich get richer, and you’re left scrambling for crumbs while they sit back in their gold-plated chairs, watching you drown in a sea of distractions.

It’s a game, and they’ve rigged it from the start.

The distractions you’re hooked on? They’re just shiny toys, distractions to keep you from asking the hard questions.

They’ve got you so wrapped up in the next viral video, the endless scroll of memes, the dopamine hits, that you’ve forgotten how to think.

You’ve lost the ability to focus on the small things that used to mean something—like a good conversation, or a walk in the park, or hell, just sitting with your own thoughts.

And it’s not just the small things slipping away. No, it’s the big things too. You can’t even concentrate on the important stuff anymore because you’ve been trained to chase after the next quick thrill.

And those thrills? They don’t fill the void. They only dig it deeper. You end up feeling emptier, more lost, thirstier for something real. The kind of thirst that no app or stupid trend will ever satisfy.

You’re caught in the middle of this mess, and the system’s got you by the throat.

You’re losing yourself piece by piece while they rake in the cash.

The rich guys at the top—the ones who run the show—couldn’t give a damn about you.

They want you distracted, numb, so you don’t question the game.

They keep feeding you garbage, and you keep gobbling it up, thinking it’s going to make you happy.

But it won’t. You’ll wake up one day, and you’ll realize you’ve spent all your time chasing something that never existed in the first place. You’ve been distracted by the noise while they quietly pick your pockets.

The truth is, you’re getting poorer.

Not just financially, though that’s a given. Nah, you’re getting poorer in the most important way—spiritually.

You’ve been starved of real meaning, of real purpose. You’ve been given quick fixes that don’t last, and now your soul is hungry, starving for something deeper.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? The system wants you weak, distracted, so you don’t have the energy to fight back. It wants you to live in the shallow end of life, never diving deep into the things that really matter.

And that’s where you’ve got to make a choice.

Are you going to keep playing along, letting the distractions numb you, while the world feeds you empty calories?

Are you going to be a victim of their greed, their profit margins, their manipulation? Or are you going to wake the hell up and start asking the questions that matter?

Questions like: “Why am I here?” “What’s the point of all this?” “What does it mean to be human?”

You’ll find the answers in the classics. And no, I’m not talking about the latest self-help book that promises you’ll “manifest your dream life” if you just follow the “seven steps.”

I’m talking about the hard stuff—the books that don’t offer easy answers, that don’t try to sell you anything.

Dostoevsky is one of them. The man wasn’t out to make a quick buck or pad his ego.

He wrote about the real problems we all face, the ones that never go away, no matter how much noise you throw at them. The darkness, the meaninglessness, the guilt, the longing. The human condition, laid bare.

Dostoevsky knew that the distractions would come, that they would pull us away from the essential questions. He knew that when you live in a world that’s obsessed with profit, you lose sight of what really matters.

And that’s where you are right now, Gen Z. You’ve been lulled into a false sense of security, distracted by the junk they’re feeding you, and now you’ve lost sight of the truth.

The hard truth. The truth that life is short, that suffering is part of the deal, and that the only way out is to face the mess head-on.

So here’s the choice:

You can keep running after the distractions, keep playing the victim to a system that’s built to keep you down, or you can decide to get back to the basics.

You can choose to read the classics, to confront the hard questions, to dig deep and find meaning in the chaos.

It won’t be easy. It’ll hurt. But that’s the only way you’re going to find your way out of this mess.

You can either live in the shallow end, drowning in the noise, or you can wade into the deep water, where the real answers lie. It’s up to you.

But know this: the clock is ticking, and the game is rigged. You’re either going to play by their rules, or you’re going to make your own. But if you choose to stay distracted, don’t come crying when you realize you’ve wasted your life on nothing.

The choice is yours.