Nihilism...

I don't think that anything essentially matters, at least not in the Christian religious sense,
in which we have objective given aims, morals etc. I don't think there are any objective aims or
morals, and I don't think the concepts of 'Good' or 'Evil' really exist in an objective sense.
I guess this makes me a Nihilist, but there is more to it than that. I don't think anything
fundamentally matters, except that which we choose to care about. In other words, nothing really
matters, but since I'm here, I might as well make the experience of my life as pleasant as
possible for myself.

It has been argued that taking this path leads to the idea that if one wants to go out and shoot
someone, just for the fun of it, then one should - after all nothing really matters. Well, it may
give one a pleasurable experience in the short term (very debatable in my opinion), but in terms
of 'making the experience of your one's pleasant', it is not at all a good idea. You'll be caught,
charged for murder and spend the rest of your days in jail, not much fun.

...with a Smile

So no, I don't want to go out and kill people. Similarly, I want to be nice to people, basically
so that they'll be nice to me (this is where the 'Smile' bit comes in, and why this isn't just
Nihilism or Egoism). This starts to sound like Hedonism, but I don't like that word - currently
it is associated with what I would call 'Short-term Hedonism', more like the view that I should
go out and kill people if I enjoy it. However, I wouldn't mind calling my philosophy 'Long-term
Hedonism'. For example, why do I do all this really hard work trying to get my PhD? Well partly
I enjoy the process itself, even if it is hard work, but I'm also looking forward (long-term) to
my life as it will be, having got my PhD and hopefully researching into some interesting bits of
mathematics. I'll enjoy that, and if I were to drop out now, the rest of my life would almost
certainly not be as pleasant.

Add on to all of this my upbringing and genetics - I am naturally predisposed to be law-abiding,
to be nice to people etc. Yes, there are no objective reasons why these predispositions are
'right' or 'good', but they seem to be working in my (self-given) aim of making my life pleasant,
so why should I expend the effort to change them? This angle explains why I should help out a
random stranger that I'm unlikely to ever meet again. I don't expect them to be nice back to me¹, but my upbringing and genetics give me a little 'feel-good buzz' when I help someone out, which I enjoy, so if helping out costs me virtually nothing, I'll do it.

Issues

Rationality and Emotion

There is maybe a bit of a contradiction in what I'm doing. I firmly believe² that the best way to get to a given aim is through rationality -
looking at a problem and thinking about it in a logical way. I don't like to trust my emotions
when making a decision - I don't see how my emotions get their information about the situation,
and in no way see how they are accurate (I know from past experience that they don't always
help out much). However, what is my aim? To have a good time, which is an issue about emotions.
So I use rationality and ignore my emotions, in order to fulfil emotional aims. How much sense
does that make? I don't really know how to resolve this, maybe it isn't really a problem. If a decision is an easy one there isn't really any conflict - if I have an emotional aim and the way to acheive it is obvious, then it is rational to go that way. Still, it seems weird.

Time and Identity

I don't see myself as the same person that I was ten years ago. In one sense of course I am
the same person, and I certainly have much in with that person, but it isn't a whole lot
more than that I have in common with some of my best friends now. So should I really care about
my ten-years-future self that much more than my best friends? Well, my genetics/upbringing tell
me to of course, but somehow this is more abstract than wether or not I should go out and shoot
someone.

Scaling down the ten years, it even goes so far as when I wake up asking if I'm the same person
that went to sleep last night. I certainly don't have a continuous stream of consciousness linking
the two times³,
all I have are memories, and the genetics/upbringing telling me that of course I'm the same person,
and that I should act so as to make my future selves have pleasant existences. This is getting
dangerously close to not caring about my other selves and wondering why I don't go out and shoot
people, if I wanted to. Don't worry, I'm not going to - I see no reason to go against
genetics/upbringing, and I don't feel any need for violence (quite the opposite), but I would
like some more reasons.

Other things

Atheism?

I used to call myself an Atheist, but I think that could be inaccurate. If we take 'Atheism' to be
"believing that God does not exist", then no, I'm not an Atheist - I don't think that
God exists, but belief⁴ is a much stronger statement. I don't think the question
of the existence of God can really be answered, and believing that God does not exist is, in my
opinion, as unjustified as believing that God does exist.

"This, too, shall pass."

A little explanation of the quote (Ancient Eastern proverb). It applies to both bad and good things.
If things are going badly, it won't last forever, and at the very worst, there will be a time when
you are no longer alive, and won't feel anything, good or bad. If things are going well, that won't
last forever either, so enjoy it now as much as you can.