Almost a decade back, I had a crucial moment in my life where I drew a lot of conclusions about what it is I believe in and why, and what I found was the definition of existential nihilism.

So help me define myself. What I've noticed, spending a lot of time in the middle of the political road and on divisive issues in general, is that value is subjective. Not that a position cannot be argued better than another, but rather, the suffering of one can always be looked at as the benefit of another, even if one or the other is in the minority. That, from the observation of an invader, the conquest of the local population is a great thing, and from the standpoint of the conquered, a terrible thing. Or, from a more neutral standpoint, that people can still be "meh" about the movie Avatar, even though it was a whopping success. Or that a $200 expense is practically nothing to the rich, yet immense to the poor. These values are, apparently, subjective.

Also, that life is not inherently meaningful. That's not to say that it cannot have meaning, which is what I love about what I think is the openness of the definition of nihilism. It just means that there's not a large man in the sky determining your true worth. Instead, you have the ability to find value for yourself in life, and do not need it dictated to you if you don't wish it so.

My problem lies in this: all of the definitions I find online impart an emotional burden upon nihilism that the nihilists themselves would reject, i.e, that without a predefined meaning, life is depressing and dark.

Buuuuut....the perspective of it being depressing and dark is itself subjective, and would therefore be useless when attempting to define nihilism, sort of like telling an atheist they worship the devil and you'll pray for them.

As you can probably tell, I place great value (subjectively!) on being able to choose my own path in life, and take great solace not fearing a pair of eyes on me at all time, judging me for not living someone else's life. Thus, I find nihilism to be overwhelmingly positive and freeing.

I do not believe that "nothing can be known or communicated", or that
"All existence itself -- actions, suffering, feelings -- is senseless, nothingness." To be frank, that strikes me as ridiculous, and I'm not sure how existence can simply be declared as "nothingness" simply by not having inherent value. Obviously, I exist to myself. As I write this, I am communicating my standpoint to you. At this point, I start to wonder if the true meaning of the definition was lost, and is now butchered by feelsy idealists.

So am I not a nihilist? Can someone more well-read than I help me out with this?