Nihil Creatum Nihil

‘Existence precedes essence’- so said Sartre in Being and Nothingness. Loathe as I am to quote him I feel he may have a point, to tell the truth I believe that, though his statement suggests that essence is qualified by the undeniable existence from which it originates and the statement itself originates from no sensible or reducible existing thing to begin with, Sartre was right to suggest that there must be the existence of a thing in order for the title of ‘thing’ and the ‘thing’s’ attributes to be applied to the thing-in-itself. Anyway, I digress, my point is simply this, whilst Sartre had something going I believe he wasn’t hitting the proverbial nail on the head. Let me explain.

                The concept of all our essential essences or attributes being derived from the existence of that to which we apply them, not that which exists being derived from its essential essence is, for want of a better phrase, bang tidy. Though I believe the appreciation for the existence of that from which essences are derived is itself an essence of what is effectively nothing, that is, nothing until we apply existence and begin to gift it the opportunity of being understood as something, as in something which exists rather than a nothing which is yet to be made some existing thing.

                Essentially everything begins as nothing. There is only nothingness to work with and out of that we create something. I know what you’re thinking, creatio ex nihilo is absurd and instantly I demonstrate to you that the phrase which is used too often to combat the biblical term, ‘nothing can be created from nothing’, attributes nothing as being something which we can discuss and as such grants nothingness the existence it requires to become a topic to be spoken of and thus it is indeed ‘nothing’ which is created from nothing. The phrase and appreciation of that which it addresses creates both the addressee and the attributes which allow for it to be spoken of. Now I’ll return to what I was saying. We effectively create the entire world in which we exist at every moment (that is one continual moment as opposed to several individual perceptions) through means which I’ll not begin to discuss here.

                We begin our phenomenological careers with absolute nothingness to work with. There is no appreciation for the differentiation and categorisation of those components of our existence which we allow to influence us. It is not until we step into nothingness, move forward into the void to see what we can decide she possesses that we begin to build, brick by brick, the scene of our existence and our entire universe. We become the architects, taught by the patriarchs who found our lives and governed by the biological powers which boil within us and steer us this way and that. We become so masterful at this basic yet all too complex art that we fool ourselves into believing that we are in fact living a life which is created outside of ourselves. The truth of the matter is we have been shown how to build the dome in which we live and have the grazes to prove it, we just don’t want to accept we have done the legwork lest we realise that our efforts are in fact potentially poor and presumably pointless as, with death, our works will end and the dome will crumble with our bones. We try to step outside the dome, marvel at its craft and shout at praise at the one that created it, whether that be science, society, nature or the divine or some other toy which sits inside the dome with us.

                I have glimpsed the edge of the dome and felt its rough and shoddy edges. I have held the toys of abstraction and seen them torn and misshapen. I have opened my eyes to my prison of my own making. I have founded my freedom and my cage at once and both have originated from nothingness. I am the creator of my own demise and it is that much crueller for it. So are you also the formula which amazes you. Depressing? No. Pointless? Maybe. The effect of the torture is not unlike the cause, the only thing you need do is become a positive cause and not negate your influence on the effect. Stop relying on the creation to advise the creator but stroll around the dome and create more, just do it with some finesse this time because, to tell the truth, right now I think all our prisons could do with a lick of paint. Which colour will you create?