Nothing

The idea of nothing can sometimes be challenging because we’re pretty much wired to perceive experiences, things, concepts as meaningful. The notion of “nothing” can seem antithetical to common-sense views held in our culture. We live in a world where meaning is attached to almost everything, but not as if we were the ones who assigned the meaning. The meanings we live inside of and hold as fundamental define our relationships with the world and give us a sense of who we are.

To step outside that structure and encounter nothing as freedom, we have to pass through and beyond (what to some is) the foreignness of the idea. If we get the past out of the future, and put it back in the past, leaving the future empty that we inadvertently placed there, then what’s in the future is nothing—nothing like a “clearing,” one in which we can be fully ourselves. It is from nothing that a “created future” can come into the picture. It doesn’t rest on anything—it rests on nothing. And from this, nothing, we get to know what’s possible in being human.