What is it to be a nihilist? The belief in nothing is a belief in itself. One thus does not uphold nothingness as a value, but as a method, and uses it to test all knowledge, since if we are not fatalists - people who believe that nothing can be known, nothing has meaning, that nothing can be done to change that state - we desire to remain alive. When one is alive, knowledge is important, much as learning to build fire was important to early cave-dwellers. In this realization, nihilism reduces from a belief in nothing to a belief in knowledge derived from awareness of nothingness.
Nothingness is eternal; when one is dead, for example, there is no longer an existence to even reflect on the nothingness. One is simply not there. Nothingness reminds us that all of what we know in life goes away, and upon reflection, that nothingness will triumph, thus our lives should have somethingness, which we generally define as meaning. And what is meaning? Satisfaction that one's time is well spent, for that time ends and nothingness takes over. Essentially this is applying nihilism to itself, and at that moment, nihilism passes from a self-pitying impotence into a state of power.
When we are aware of nothingness, we no longer can believe in Absolutes: a pure God who does what is right for us, moral "good" and "evil," heaven and a Utopic society. These are all pure ideals which do not exist in nature, because they do not admit that nothingness exists, nor do they recognize its necessity. In moral terms, a life lost is a horrible thing, but what if that was a well-lived life tapering down into Alzheimer's disease, incontinence and hoping for a high score at canasta? What if it is murderer, or someone who is so diseased their life is misery? Nothingness can be a savior. When we forget nothingness, we lapse into well-meaning Absolutes designed to make us feel better about life, but is not that a presumption that life itself is bad?
A nihilist is one who accepts nothingness as necessary for the whole to exist; above "good" and "bad" there is "meta-good," which requires both good and bad. This goes beyond a belief in nothingness; it is a belief in the necessity of nothingness, both in the operations of nature and in our ability to perceive nature. A fatalist, or one who believes nothing can be known or done, is not outside this view of "good" and "evil," but a nihilist is. Having accepted that Absolutes do not exist, a nihilist is then tasked with the goal of finding meaning and order in the universe, since anyone except a fatalist will attempt this task as part of the process of being alive.
