get free; who needs nihilism?

"Out of the black, into the blue," the refrain of Lana Del Rey's Get Free is deceptively unassuming. It stands as a testament to a newfound mindset, to leave darkness in favor of what we may find in the light. As we move "into the blue", we expel ourselves from the impending nihilism that our culture thrives upon. In essence, nihilism is derived from the Latin word "nihil", meaning nothing. It centers around the belief that there is no higher purpose in our lives and that everything is meaningless. Radical philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously claimed, "God is dead. God remains dead, and we have killed him," a line that would grow into a nihilistic mantra. The statement does not only denounce spirituality but every aspect of faith and belief that society is built on.

"Automat" by Edward Hopper, 1927

Years before this, the father of existentialist philosophy, Søren Kierkegaard, rejected the notion that we have no purpose. He wrote that the throbbing hopelessness each person faced was caused by settling for "a level of despair they can tolerate" and accepting this state as happiness. The idea that we live pointlessly allows us to live in a manner described as our "default, natural state" by David Foster Wallace. In Get Free, Lana Del Rey similarly denounces a pointless existence in the "ordinary world" in favor of the newfound principles she defines as her "modern manifesto". In this, she explains that a life full of purpose removes the burden of "the Crowley way of being". She refers to Aleister Crowley, an English occultist who appointed himself as the prophet of a new religion that centered around worldly pleasure. She refutes the assertion that humans exist to only serve themselves with the notion that material satisfaction is an illusion. Similar to Kierkegaard, Lana Del Rey equates purposelessness to inexorable misery.

Born To Die by Jenna Gibbons, 2021

In conclusion, the default nihilism that consumes our mindsets detests productivity and purpose. The contention between contentment and nihilism is purpose and a lack thereof. We must usurp the negative mentality that grips our consciousness in order to move "into the blue".