"We are living in a holographic world; as the canvass turns, things just simply appear and disappear." - Sean Ash
It was the French philosopher René Descartes who once said "cogito ergo sum" in English meaning "I think therefore I am”. Well, I say that if this is the case then so must "Ego sum ergo esse," meaning I am, therefore, be. In other words, I am, therefore I must exist and if I do exist then I must be something rather than nothing. A fair point to add is that it is true that I have not always existed, and so at one point I may have been nothing. However, I have been pulled into the universe through the determinism of the other; the action of man combined with the labour of woman has initiated my existence and thus begun the process of becoming. This still does not explain where I was when the ancient greek philosopher Parmenides once wrote "Nothing comes from nothing" and when one of the greats Aristotle had argued that everything in motion must have been set into motion by the "unmoved mover". I must have been somewhere, surely?
If at first there was nothing, and though a thing such as 'nothing' is imagined to be non-existent, it is still ascribed specific attributes so that it can be identified and it is because we can identify it that it can be understood. Therefore, it must exist and paradoxically it must be something. Like the blank white screen I once stared at before writing this article. A white screen existed and yet it was the mind that brought life to it. The actor was not born on the stage but born for the stage as when the time was right, the curtains were pulled back and the performer appeared for all to see. When the end came, the curtains were closed and the actor was nowhere to be seen.
Another possibility could be a dual reality where we are living in a holographic world; as the canvass turns, things just simply appear and disappear. If no one is moving and if the hologram is not moving, all we are left with is a non-moving image; no life, no movement, an object but an object nonetheless and still something. Another dualist approach could be that we are the fusion from the physical and metaphysical and simply lose our presence when we are either cut off or disconnected from either side? Or maybe we are the fusion of both man and woman? Either way you look at it, there still exists an objective world and so maybe the question is not whether nothingness or something exists but whether we really exist at all?
Lets take the 'being' as in the human being into question. No matter how much it should accomplish it will always feel that more could have been done or that something is simply missing. It is always in search for 'other' like it has known the other its entire life but simply just forgot its name. This being strives and yet no matter how hard it tries, it can never be full. For some beings, they do not like the status quo and will stop at nothing to see some form of change as they move away from the darkness and into the light; never stopping or allowing themselves to be stagnated by nothingness. They've been nothing for far too long and now is finally the time to be somebody. There's no going back!
No living human being truly wants to equate to nothing or being no one. Simply existing alone is not enough as if life were to exist without purpose then what would be the point in living? Could it be that beings are possibly shifted from simply existing alone to becoming? Why? Was nothingness not enough? Or a fear to revert, to descend, to step back where man had already once walked as the philosopher had figured out the problems of nothingness and so now was time for something new? Was it the unconscious entity surrounded by darkness that sought to escape the fear, the pain and the deprivation of the infinite chain eternally binding it to the chaotic plane of nothingness where no-thing should exist? Who truly knows. Maybe nothingness is pain as nothingness is energy-less.
If you can try to imagine an empty stomach and what it feels like to be hungry; the stomach cramps that entail; the weakness of the limbs and the emerging mood swings and anger within the mind; the sheer will to do whatever one has to do in order to satisfy themselves and fill that once empty stomach with something. If you can imagine that then surely you can conceptualise what it must feel like when a part of you is empty. The material world is the food to the stomach of nothingness; it is all that nothingness highly depends on. The nothingness fills itself and sets out to bite into different objects so that it can bring out the light within itself. As it consumes it grows, and as it grows it starts to become more aware of itself and its own purpose. It begins to see the light and is filled with words and images; sights that have, hitherto, been missing. It is the darkness making its way into light so that it can escape all that is painful and grim to move forward into the world of harmonious tranquility.
Who truly knows? These are just some thoughts. They are thoughts made up of words that were made and existed before I existed, and so the only time I was truly wordless was as a baby; before I knew any word and to be frank I have no recollection of that. It meant nothing.
By Sean Ash
