Being a Nothingner today
Héctor Sevilla Godínez
University of Guadalajara, México
hector.sevilla@academicos.udg.mx
Download a PDF of this article
Abstract: This article shows the concrete implications for the individual who assumes Nothingness, the Nothingner, with regard to his own existence. On first term, it is assumed that we speak of an individual who looks to be congruent with each and every one of the previous aspects listed about the obstacles which are to be overcome upon thinking of Nothingness, and with the consequences of persisting in the conscience of them. The intention is to demonstrate, profoundly, what it means to be a Nothingner, which is a neologism that we inaugurate with this document.
Keywords: Nothingner, Nihilism, Loneliness, Nothingness, Post-rationalism
Introduction
I will begin by referring to the experience of loneliness, so characteristic of he who thinks something in a different manner and has broken away from the conventional emotional support. I carry on with the importance of eluding the rational method as a univocal system. I continue with a brief reflection about the construction of sense with regard to the incitation towards philosophical exercise. Afterward, I will cover how significant it is to demonstrate a life testimony that is congruent with what is set forth in words. And, finally, a reflection about the fact of dying day by day until total death will be demonstrated.
All of this constitutes what it means to be a Nothingner today; this is to say, a man or woman who contemplates Nothingness and who knows to reduce to that itself, all the social constructs that obligate him or her to be something that he or she is not.
1. Reconciling oneself with loneliness
The phrase proposed by William Shakespeare in Hamlet, “To be or not to be, that is the question”, is polyvalent in itself. It is so because it commences at the supposition that one is or is not, that each of these issues separately exists in an independent manner. It must be made clear that the interaction between the Being and Nothingness is possible and that these do not mutually exclude themselves. In spite of there being people who postulate the contrary upon proposing that “it is not possible to affirm and deny at the same time” (Llano, 2004 348), it is evident that the Being and the not-being are in a constant interaction. The matter or question is not whether one or the other is but, rather, in which manners are the Being and Nothingness configured in a determined issue. It is about discerning the dialectic of the Being and Nothingness, just as the manner in which this combination of something – someone – in particular exists. In the same manner, since there is no figure without a background, neither can something be had without Nothingness. That is why “Nothingness is extremely potent” (Watts, 1981 46) and it simply cannot be excluded; for, though the Being is, it is also in relation to Nothingness. The issue, then, is not “to be or not to be” but “how the being and the not-being are”.
Hence, if the Being and Nothingness are in themselves the binary system of reality and of everything that exists, we cannot elude to Nothingness upon being what we are, whatever this thing that we are may be; in such a manner that “the positive and the negative, the something and the Nothingness, are inseparable and go together. Nothingness is the force in virtue of which something can be manifested” (Watts, 1981 46) and one of the vivified consequences of it consists in the affirmation of solitude as an inevitable manner of being. No matter how much company I have before me, it is my own Nothingness which spits my solitude out to me. One is in solitude and, even when we look for manners to evade it, it is very profoundly lived out.
To assume Nothingness is to recognize one’s own solitude; the uniqueness that promotes difference and the difference that implies individuality. One is as an individual and always as a lone individual. Being alone does neither suppose physical distance nor absence of corporal proximity with other bodies. What it supposes, rather, is the impossibility of being known in truth, of being completely understood, of having the certainty of self-knowledge, of profoundly seeing oneself as one is. All of it, precisely, is due to the fact that one not only is but also is not. And that part – the one that one is not – is not possible to be seen; for upon seeing what one is upon being, we cannot see what one is not, due to the fact itself of being. I cannot contemplate my own nothing if I don’t contemplate Nothingness. There is nobody who can completely contemplate me, not even myself, for the impenetrable Nothingness is in me. Temporary as I am, changing and unstable, I remain outside of any certain conceptualization, elevating myself only in the passing air of uncertainty; travelling always in the not-being that makes me be, diluted in the penumbras of the un-sense, abstract and distant, floating and nostalgic for the interior darkness that nobody knows.
To assume Nothingness is to assume solitude; the impenetrable solitary space which is not opened only upon crying. No tear penetrates it, no poetic voice. The profound hermetism is impossible to break by the fact that we do not have eyes capable of capturing light amongst such darkness. We have not been equipped for understanding Nothingness and the Nothingness that possesses us. How can I say that I know myself if my self is only an illusion? How to assume that I am somebody when I recognize that in relation to the collectivity in which I can distinguish myself? In what manner to relate oneself if it is not with falseness, being what one is not and demonstrating what the other person grasps; which, furthermore, is only a partiality? How to speak of self-knowledge without leaving aside self-complacency and uncertainty? How to understand company if one is always alone? How to say that I love if I neither possess love nor can truly understand who I supposedly love? How to connect with ourselves if there are only lost links of our supposedly utopian identity? How to speak of myself if everything assumes a distortion for me? How to demonstrate myself if I do not contain myself? How to make myself seen if what I show is not visible? How to cease being in solitude if I do not know where what I am is? How to be something upon being in Nothingness? How to cease to be Nothingness if Nothingness makes me be? There is no exit; only eternal returns to the cave of simulations that this world supposes.
And so, the more we look to deny solitude, we remain more alone and more incongruent. To assume solitude is to assume oneself as uncognoscible; it is at least to not attempt to fool oneself. There is no possibility of fusion, beyond the psychological pathologies that would suppose it; for fusion is to believe oneself to be fused, not the real fusion.
If one’s own solitude is recognized, the fear to be alone is lost. And that, fear to be alone, is the original cause of many of our misfortunes. Overcoming fears is to avoid remaining in the search for recognition, approval, company, love. Every one of the demonstrations of our fragility, which make one’s own lightness evident, are a consequence of the minimal or null assumption of solitude. To the extent that we recognize ourselves as alone, we are also more willing for company, without this meaning the assumption of obligatory or imprisoning ties.
To speak of Nothingness supposes solitude itself. The disapproval of a world centered on the Being as a consequence of the fear of Nothingness. Every person who expresses it deserves this: to return to the Nothingness that he proposes. I assume that some readers will awaken in time and unite themselves to the idea, but not the totality. Anyhow, solitude is always a possibility for everyone and a fact. It is a possibility as something that can be grasped, but it is a fact even as a non-grasped reality.
To assume solitude is to know oneself without God, nor creator, nor sense, nor path, without motives, and without certainties about anything. To assume solitude is to cease to fear anguish. But it is also the recognition that such anguish is temporary for that which we recognize as inevitable, is not to anguish us forever; Nothingness, it is.
Hence, anguish or nausea is only the beginning; later on it is Peace and active resignation. If one lives constantly anguished by Nothingness it is perhaps because one has only superficially comprehended it but has not assumed it yet; there is not a true contemplation. To fuse oneself with Nothingness, to intimately comprehend it, is to cease to fear it; it is to recognize it even within oneself. There is not anything that provokes more fear than to find the object of fear within oneself. This occurs with Nothingness. But behind the fear comes acceptance and, in it, wisdom. It does not suffice with having knowledge of Nothingness. One requires to know to let it be; in such a manner that the anguish is only temporary. It is the necessary apprenticeship to Nothingness before definitely professing it. Once Nothingness is professed, it is part of one’s own life; and one of Nothingness’ manifestations is solitude.
The fear of solitude is the clearest demonstration that one has not learnt to live, that life’s truth has not yet been assumed. It is even the demonstration that one does not live; that behind our flesh there are only vague, superfluous, infant illusions. It is not possible to continually live under the skirts or our innocence. Our desire to explain reality is only one more manner of avoiding uncertainty. Solitude, summed up, is also to assume oneself without certainties, to recognize the lightness of human knowledge and the smallness and naivety of our reasoning.
Now, the issue is then how do the Being and the not-being interact in our experience? One of its compaginations is the relationship between solitude and company. Analogically, solitude is the bases in which all of our nexus, relations, and companies figure. In order for such figures to exist, it is imperative that it exists in the basis of solitude. Now, this solitude is inevitable for it is above it (and not below it) that all relation is possible. The basis, which is the solitude, allows the figure, the form of relation or, what is the same: the basis of all relation of nexus with another human is solitude itself. There is no manner in which to avoid solitude through company and relationships, for they themselves are sustained to the extent that the solitude is.
Being so, he who understands well will have foreseen that it is not about isolating oneself as a consequence of a fear of others or social dislike; rather, it is about attempting to profoundly assume the basis. From there, interaction is possible; healthy relationships, outside of the traditional structures of treating as an object; relationships between beings who have assumed their solitude and do not attempt to break it at all costs. To assume Nothingness, and the solitude that goes along with it, is to be free even of the fear to not be it; it is to relate oneself without ceasing to be alone or to self-propose oneself as the saviour of the other person or executioner of the other’s solitude. To assume solitude is, at most, to cease to be and allow the not-being. It is then about understanding that there is fusion of the Being and Nothingness, just as what one is with Everything. None of these issues is only understood through rational means; the promotion of a different rationalism is necessary.
2. Promoting antirational rationalism
The invitation to promote a rationalism that confronts rationalism, or that proposes itself as an object to be destroyed, could seem contradictory. However, there is no such incongruence if it is correctly understood. This is why I am to explain it in three parts: about the sense of what is rational, about the importance of what is holistic, and about the anti-rationality of a rationalism based on Nothingness; this is to say, post-rationalism.
Rationalism is commonly understood as a consistent posture in the access to knowledge by exclusive means of reason. Furthermore, the majority of people assume the supposition that reasoning can reveal universal truths to us, so constituting itself as the ideal or excelsior tool that man has to know it all. Firstly, I am to affirm – as surely the reader already supposes – that the impossibility of access to the Truth due to its inexistence is already, in itself, the main argument which weakens radical rationalism for it doesn’t have access, in itself, to what supposedly gives it its fundament. Furthermore, the Cartesian phrase of “I think, then I exist”, must be suppressed by “I am Nothingness, then I exist”; and that it implies, in the term am, the utter recognition of Nothingness in oneself.
Rationalism became scientificism in supposing that only that which science proves is truth and that that which isn’t scientific, remains excluded from the plane of respectable knowledge. Part of the disgrace of human existence begins when what is scientific is considered as something absolute that provides value only to what can be quantifiably demonstrated. By it, it is not about us being against science for the benefits that it has provided to us as a species are evident. What I mean is that science, on its positivistic slope, is one of the manners of knowledge that man has; certainly rational, but that has not been always including of other possibilities. Nothingness is, actually, one of the topics usually excluded from science which – other than the experiments about empty space in Physics – has not included it in its list of projects which are always centered on the Being of things. For the comprehension of the Being, we are to also contemplate what is not. Or, rather, what is upon not being.
Distinct to the knowledge based on conceptualizations – rational knowledge – and to the sensible knowledge centered on experience – empirical knowledge – we will also assign importance to the holistic knowledge that is centered on what is intuitive. We are not to assume intuition as a simple gut-feeling or fantasy. Rather, it is about a non-sensory perception – though we usually begin to capture things with the senses – about an issue that is difficultly explainable by means of traditional language.
Holistic knowledge has not been included in the structure that science proposes. However, when a scientist perceives the possibility of a hypothesis, he is also intuiting an alternative of manner of understanding something, due to an originating holistic perception. Later on, the scientist will utilize all rational resources within his reach to explain the validity of such intuition by way of explanations, arguments, or proofs. In part, I have done so in this piece: intuited Nothingness and later looked to demonstrate or argue the possibility of it, and its interaction with existence, from rational structures (I hope!). And I have done it in that manner because the Western and academic world, concretely, has utilized these manners in order to provide validity to premonitory intuitions with which a holistic reflection or theoretical proof is always begun. Coinciding with it, I suppose that the reader will be able to confirm that I have not only and univocally followed a rational line.
Now, if the intuition that I speak of is castrated or the holistic sense is repressed, what is rational becomes only a memorized reproduction with very small shades of novelty with regard to what already existed previously. This occurs with groups and people who are fearful of questioning or doubting what is established. Upon fearing to think, intuit, or repress one’s own intuitions, the exercise of discovery that will nobly allow an integral advancement is made impossible. Contrary to that, we remain with previous explanations – generally the traditional ones – which have been made a consensus by the majority; which is why we assume our manner of understanding the world, and ourselves, from these perspectives that are alien to our thinking. In the West, for example, we spend life thinking, feeling, and understanding everything based on the paradigm of the Being; and, due to it, as a function of the denial of Nothingness. That is why, precisely, it is that the openness to holistic knowledge from within Nothingness is a manner of grasping, in itself, a broader span of possibilities.
In order for this to be possible, we must, partly, liberate ourselves from the rationalist structure that gets us drunk with pride. It could be paradoxical to propose a form of knowledge that has the acceptance of the impossibility of that same knowledge as a starting point; but that in itself opens other perspectives of comprehension. It is not about completely eliminating rationalism; it is about rationalism not implying the elimination of other possibilities.
Post-rationalism supposes an attitude; a very personal implication before the fact of assuming Nothingness. It is not that once ceases to be rational or confronts what is rational, but it is about not becoming univocal from within rationalism or limiting the access of knowledge to a sole route. In post-rationalism one continues to be rational, but with the flexibility of doubting the postulates of reason itself. It is about a reason that confronts itself, an affirmation that is capable of being denied, a confrontation with orders themselves. Rationalism, then, is overcome with a rationalism that integrates the holistic and sensible. We would have to speak – due to it – of an integrating rationalism not centered on the Being with a broader vision, even towards the unseen.
Post-rationalism implies the overcoming of positivistic-scientific pride, the overcoming of univocisms, and the tendency to look for the Universal. Upon assuming Nothingness, one ceases to search for the Universal because, precisely, the most Universal of the possible universalities has already been found. To assume Nothingness is to cease to look for Absolutes and to permit the peculiarities that Nothingness itself permits upon letting what is be.
The post-rationalism that I propose looks to understand reasons, not the Reason; for it parts from the supposition that all knowledge is rational and that, then, the particular situation of the connector – the person who knows – is always distinct to another connector, also in search. The fact that knowledge is rational supposes that it is always subject to the conscience itself, to one’s own previous learning, personal experience, what is grasped by the senses, and previous conceptualizations from which what is perceived in a context, also determined and specific, is associated. This rationalism, which commences at the grasping of such relational syncretism, cannot only be rational but is much broader than that.
The following could be objected: if what is proposed goes beyond rationalism, why do I not cease to call it rationalism? The answer is also in sight: it is still called rationalism because man is subject, by the simple fact of being so, to a structure that he constructs with his own rational capacity. The proposal is not to remain within a rationalism that is closed itself, but in a moderated rationalism, open to the ineludible existence of other knowledge structures in man himself. Even from what is empirical, emotional, or intuitive, there are motives that the person provides for himself in order to follow this or that system. Man cannot escape the structure of his own rationality. That is why I have not erased, or eluded, the term rationalism in the proposal. Likewise, in the concept of post-rationalism, a certain degree by which to overcome what is rational is also assumed. This is due to the rational man himself having the capacity to go against his own reason in order to confront it, or beyond his reason in order to overcome it by other routes of knowledge. Anyhow, once having intuited what is required to intuit, or grasped what is required to be grasped, one will have to return – the post-rationalist individual – to the rational and linguistic scheme in order to be able to transmit it in such a manner that it is comprehended by others; or, to make what has been set forth prevail over time, since it is not possible to transmit something to men of forthcoming centuries without leaving a testimony or evidence of it on paper, or somehow recorded.
That is why he who has been able to go beyond what is merely rational, will have to rationally explain it in order that that – which he knows or believes he knows – is transmitted to another person; in spite of the distortions that the use of words supposes. Perhaps another medium without the use of language could generate greater alterations.
Being so, a post-rationalism that also includes what is emotional and intuitive, is in itself a personal consequence of the act of assuming Nothingness. One does not allow oneself to be a rational being but is something more; and that must be explained, anyhow, in a rational manner. It is not only about explaining oneself with reasons, then, so that rational people may grasp and confront it; rather, it is also about motivating the use of one’s own antirational reasoning, the propitiation of the philosophical exercise, and the linking contemplation of Nothingness.
3. The possibility of inciting philosophy based on Nothingness
My proposal is not that one must teach to philosophize; rather, that what is feasible for the philosopher is to create the environment of doubt and uncertainty that will cause, exploit, motivate, propitiate, derive, incite, or push to philosophize. This is not far from the Socratic Method or from didactic questionings based on philosophical methods, but it does contribute the distinction that philosophy can only be born in the person who philosophizes. Also, that it is not possible to teach to philosophize, but that people can be induced to it based on a specifically created atmosphere.
Furthermore, philosophizing based on Nothingness supposes that we leave aside the manipulation of the term “Philosophy” as a function of promoting proselytisms. This is a detestable issue that would imply not only a wrongfully intended simulation, but a return to absolutist or colonial medieval systems, or to modern impositions that are quite contrary to the liberation with which it is necessary to undertake the path of critique and profound reflection.
In that tone, it must be clear that there is little to be taught in life; for one does not learn something the same as the way it is transmitted. It is even less so with regard to the axiological. Values are not taught; therefore, there wouldn’t be training in values as such. Rather, at most, one can only offer the elements for everyone to deliberate or clarify, not the values he wishes to choose or the things or attitudes he wants to value. Hence, propitiating the philosophical exercise also supposes the possibility of clarification and discernment of one’s own valuing axes.
To comprehend that neither philosophy nor values are taught – or that true philosophy would imply the possibility of constructing values, and not supposing them as already defined – makes us ineludible to the fact of digging towards the epistemological question about our knowledge. This causes, naturally, the following issue: how to know that a person has philosophized? He could write a report for us, but what is the ideal measure for philosophizing? Having two theorems per paragraph, relating at least six ideas per page, or defining the logical rules of one’s arguments? No. In any case, if one philosophizes based on life, how to establish a just parameter that measures an aspect of which the starting point is, in itself, the difference?
Before these issues, we must understand that it is not about quantifying philosophy from within our pedagogical and evaluative structures; rather, it is about assuming that philosophy itself refuses to be quantified. On the contrary, it aspires to come down from the academic altars of lucubration, abstraction and mere speculation, in order to submerge itself in an analysis of reality; not from within the classic smell of library furniture and books, but from within the swampy smell of sweat, the prevailing conflict, the chaos. Philosophy must be made into life, and life must be made philosophically.
Does it make sense to teach Philosophy today? Of course; but it seems to me that we are to renovate said sense, and affirm that the most important thing is to have the capacity to philosophize based on the propitiation that is given in life and later assume that same life with a distinct optic from which to re-understand the world that beseeches us. For everything that occurs in the world is, in itself, the necessary detonator in order to begin to philosophize and act. Perhaps the question about the sense of philosophizing in life could be modified to: would life make sense without it? And, based on Nothingness, we would have to say that it is precisely upon grasping that Nothingness that our life can take up another shade and another sense. I am to recognize that life can have a sense even without philosophy but, naturally, it is also assumed that the sense that such life will have, is not philosophical. Neither is it possible to assume Nothingness without posing questions that imply the philosophical exercise.
Probably one of the best manners to demonstrate that Philosophy and the interaction with Nothingness can be relevant, in an individual’s process of becoming conscious, is the testimony that he demonstrates to others. Naturally it is not about being an example to be followed, but it is about demonstrating that to be followed is a possibility. The followers of a Nothingner do not follow the person; rather, upon discovering such potentiality also in themselves, they follow the attitude that he wears.
4. Testifying Nothingness
Demonstrating one’s own contemplation of Nothingness to others is not something that should imply the will to do so; rather, it is possible to radiate it without proposing oneself to it. Naturally, contemplating Nothingness demands a sacrifice; but once it is contemplated, it is no longer complex to testify to it, for the costs are assumed. Without a doubt, living from within parameters that are distinct to the conventional ones will never be an unperceived issue. The people surrounding an individual that contemplates Nothingness, contemplate him. This is already, in itself, a testimony. We understand the act of testifying as the act of placing the experience of having been witness to something in evidence. The only manner of testifying to Nothingness is assuming the implications of Nothingness itself, just as we have said in the previous section.
Testifying to Nothingness supposes the rupture with univocisms, with daily appreciations, with absolutisms, and with the authority of the dogma. To provide a testimony of Nothingness is to assume oneself as light, changing, and limited. It is to always argue as a function of the comprehensive intent in the reasons of the other person. It is to assume one’s isolations without striving to deny or evade it. To testify to Nothingness is also to break apart from the idols by which we abide for the search of sense when sense itself has been broken. It is to trivialize the absoluteness of certain postures, to understand the relative situation of opinions without allowing them to found universalisms. Testifying to Nothingness is to use reason whilst doubting it, to assume the limits of human reason, to comprehend the non-rational motives of one’s own life. In the same manner, testifying to Nothingness is also to understand oneself as an always situated being, amalgamated by a specific context; also understanding that every human being is always a being in context, and that every opinion is relative to the surroundings from which he surges.
To testify to Nothingness is to assume responsibility for one’s own acts without making an external someone, or something, responsible. It is to comprehend the acts of others and the not-contemplated reasons. It is to understand that each person is worthy, and that solidarity before the situations of others is worth a lot. To testify against Nothingness is to forgive; it is to assume the unnecessary aspect of guilt, judgments against others, and moralizations. It is to permit things to be, including those which one may think should not happen. It is to understand the cosmos, the order of the universe, and the chaos that that represents to our small and ignorant eyes. To testify to Nothingness is to allow oneself to value values themselves from a broader perspective, from the surroundings of one’s possibility to be created and destroyed. To testify to Nothingness is to not attempt to imprison any person in the name of love. It is to escape the desire of being free, it is to permit contingency without anything else.
To testify to Nothingness is to give a new meaning to things and understand that this alternate meaning could later be destroyed. It is about positioning oneself as a theorem, supposition, and ideology constructor at the same thing that one assumes to be a social product. To testify to Nothingness is to renounce to the concepts of divinity and, by it, worshiping any possibility of it to the greatest extent. To testify to Nothingness is to confront the ego, reducing it upon understanding it to be small and needful. It is to question the educational and economical systems that govern the world. To testify to Nothingness is to delve deep into the mystic life, without renouncing to a healthy asceticism that supposes a greater un-attachment to worldly things. To testify to Nothingness is to be willing to teach based on one’s doubts and not based on established responses. It is to assume uncertainty due to our impossibility of certainties.
To testify to Nothingness is to confront one’s own ignorance, and that of others, in the knowledge that ignorance is perpetual. To testify to Nothingness is to understand the flow of things without arbitrarily opposing oneself. To testify to Nothingness is also to become passionate about knowing that life is ending. It is to never become bored; to always have fun. It is flexibility before the infinite array of possibilities. To testify to Nothingness is, at most, to live in such a manner that one is willing to die any day.
To contemplate Nothingness is, finally, to understand that Nobody is Everybody, that Never is Always, that Nobody is something, and that Nothingness is. That is why to testify to Nothingness is an almost impossible issue for every person that is univocally centered on the Being, but not for who is willing to let go of it, dying daily.
5. Dying Daily
When I speak of dying as something valuable, I do not exactly refer to looking for death. I reiterate that this proposal has nothing to do with suicide but, rather, with allowing certain things to die in us that do not help the necessary un-attachment that the contemplation of Man supposes for today’s man and woman. It is about, in order to daily achieve dying, letting flow. Letting flow is to understand the passing nature of things, people, behaviours, life itself. Letting flow is to not cling to things having to be in a determined manner; to not cling to people seeing me, or feeling me, or understanding me, or treating me, or looking for me in a manner that is specific to my will. Letting flow is to understand the impossibility of turning another human being into a thing; it is to let him flow according to his will. Letting flow is to let go, allow change, rupture, unload the past, open one’s hand and let go of the luggage. Letting flow is to allow resentments to pass, let them be, and then bid them farewell when they have been with us sufficiently enough so as to teach us something upon permitting us to learn from them. Letting flow is to understand that everything passes, everything, ends, everything changes, and change itself is the life that we have. Letting flow is to not rely on life, on stability, on immovability. Letting flow is to permit the Universe to be; it is to grasp that not everything is graspable, to not attempt to explain everything. It is also to enjoy; it is to allow that joy to be and then vanish. Letting flow is to be each day, dying to the previous day.
For all of it, it is imperative to let change itself be. It is not about doing something in order for the change to be, but simply permit it, assuming that our force is smaller than causality. To let be is also to permit the other person to be as he desires to. It is to understand that each life responds to the consciousness that it has. That it is not possible to live the life of the other person; that each person responds to his contingencies. To let be is to not oppose the other person’s happiness; to comprehend that one must let oneself suffer everything in order to reconstruct oneself; that pain is part of life. To let be is also to accept that the other person can be in disagreement with me, leave me, change me, and be disloyal to me. It is so: to let be is to assume oneself as vulnerable before the decision of the other person. It is also to allow one’s own suffering, to recognize the value of the other person’s will upon letting us go. Nobody is obliged to have me like them, nobody is committed for life, for that is what promises are: only promises that do not evade the possibility of being broken. We must allow the other person to break their promises. To let be is to understand the Nothingness that provokes changes; little against it can be done more than the unfruitful denial. To let be is to understand the passiveness of what is while it is.
Hence, it is fundamental to also assume that the not-being is beside everything that is; in such a manner that we must let not be, which means allowing certain things not to happen. Man must understand that whether he allows it or not, wants it or not, there are certain things that will never become reality; that is why it is important to assume that, whether we let them or not, certain things will never be, even in spite of us.
To allow to not be, to let the not-be be also the not-be, is to understand that not everything is in one’s own hands. But it is also to comprehend that everything that is has – upon being – the not-being’s correspondence, and that change is always possible. We cannot elude the possibility that what is today be modified tomorrow; precisely because everything that is, is also contingent to everything else, existent and non-existent. We must assume the vulnerability of what is upon assuming the not-being. This not-being must be let be, allowed, for no personal affect and no human will ever impede the not-being. To allow to not-be is also to accept the death of those we love, the possible death of those who have not died, and also the possible death of our own plans and ideals when these have become unfeasible. There, when an objective, goal, project, or intention has ceased to be feasible, is where it must be let to die. We must let it cease to be, upon not-being, in order that, automatically, we let the forthcoming be; the consequent change that will allow new objectives, goals, or projects. To let the not-be be means that we are beings with more than a single project in life; that things, and ourselves, change and that there is nothing to stop that flow.
It is also about letting what is; understanding by it that simply because something exists doesn’t mean it must necessarily be ours. It must be understood that, in essence, no thing or person is real and entirely ours, for what is ours is Nothingness. No possession is truly personal but, simply, legally so. We must separate ourselves from having and leave what is; to let go of people, of one’s own children; to leave what is and has ceased to be ours, or never was. It is not necessary for something to cease to exist in order to have to let it go. Everything can – even during its existence – become, little by little, something foreign in our hands. To leave what is consists in not enslaving oneself in a possession; neither measuring oneself through them nor understanding that happiness will be obtained based on a possession. We must die to the attachment that is forged in our interior. We must discover that what makes us desire is the space that Nothingness means in us; hence, we must permit Nothingness’ space to be filled with it and never by something. We must understand that interior emptiness – healthily lived out – is also constructive. We must permit the solitude which that implies, without attempting to fill that solitude with something external, including other humans.
Dying daily is also to let what is not, in the understanding that we do not only become attached to what is and exists, but even also to what is not yet or what will definitely not be. Examples of it are rigid ideals, dogmatic feelings, abstract goals, illusions, absolutisms, immovable moral postures, divinities, authoritarian criteria, religions, scientificisms, and, at most, all that arbitrary universalisms imply. We must leave what is not, even when this may imply the need to overcome one’s own fears. It is understood that we construct our stability or tranquility based on the protection of absolute ideas or suppositions; but that, definitely, is something that is only in our mind and must be discarded from there. To what end should be build an alternate world for ourselves if the one in which we live is a world that is alternate to Nothingness? Is there a need to lie to ourselves on top of the fact that what we know is – already in itself – sufficiently distorted? Is it imperatively human to have to evade the world itself that, within its category of Being, is already a manner of evasion from Nothingness? How to escape the Nothingness that we are by searching for divine entities created by ourselves, who possess nothing and are possessed by Nothingness? To leave what is not (being) is to assume what is (not being).
On the collective plane, it is assumed that to follow the idea of dying daily is also to permit each person’s manner of dying in their own life. It is about letting leave which means allowing to be let alone; which means that, on occasion, we are personally included within the decisions of other people. I am to allow to be left, abandoned, humiliated, or partially destroyed – for that can be the decision of the other person about me – but not because of it am I to let myself die in such a manner; for though I may permit the will of the other person over me, I am not obliged to assume such a will as my own. I can comply by the alien will, as long as such a will does not suppose coercion of my own election. Concretely, and speaking in first person, I will accept your decision to leave me, forget me, nullify me; but all of that does not imply that I leave myself, that I forget myself, and that I nullify myself as a function of pleasing you. I only have my own conscience and, if it is true that it is limited, after it I have nothing more than Nothingness left over. I only have Nothingness and that is Everything. I only have Nothingness; certainly that suffices and is left over.
We are to understand that we humans usually search for absolute nexus with others. We search to simulate something strong and unconditional which we call love; but beyond love (post-love) is the absolute respect to the other’s decision. You leave me, you go, you stay, you can do anything with me, but I will not do with myself what you do. To let the other person be does not mean to leave my being for the other person; in any case, only to leave myself for Nothingness. In warlike conflict, the will of one group to destroy another group exists, but it must not be assumed that that must effectively be so; therefore, I affirm that the legitimate defense, resistance as a final option, is worthy and eloquent.
Finally, it is about letting myself, which means letting me be as I am to be; not as I am, but as I am to be, which implies Nothingness itself. The only certain thing about me is that I will be Nothingness and I can do little to escape myself. The only thing in my hands is to cease to be now, but that doesn’t guarantee excluding my essence from a potential nothing. It would only hasten things upon turning me into an Absolute Nothingness right now. If death is the only manner of escaping being part of nothing, upon being Nothingness, then I am to wait until this arrives by itself and not bring that process forward by terminating my life. To assume Nothingness is not to destroy myself but to let myself. To let myself flow with the flow of life, with causative events, with the unending and unexplainable connections of what is among itself with what is not. To let myself is also to play down my own self; it is to understand that there is only conscience in me and that thanks to it, it is that I can imagine that I am something. To let myself is also to let go of the illusion of myself. It is to understand that who understands is not me; that the self is only a creation; that in reality I am cloned from myself; and that – believing to be me – I am only consciousness which, with the intention of not distorting myself upon mistaking myself with the rest of what is graspable, generates me. I am nothing more than the illusion of being. I am Nothingness itself. To let myself is to allow it; it is to let it be in me; it is to cease suffering, for it is the self who suffers and the self is only an illusion that has little to do with reality, in the understanding that perhaps a reality exists.
Being so, dying daily is assuming life’s fiction, the unreality of the present, the intangibility of what we touch, the invisibility of what we see, the untouchable of what we desire, the falseness of what we feel, the lie of what we believe, the triviality of profoundness, the not being of the Being, the Nothingness of everything, the nobody of someone, the emptiness of what is full. To leave myself is the true liberation; it is to overcome selfness and to be, finally, truly, in the absolute that is upon not being.
Finally, I am to leave the idea that I must leave; for little does such an issue matter in the natural course of existence. If I let be, I let the not being, I let what is, I let what is not, I let to let, I let to be let, or I leave myself – anyhow – that will never change the fact that I am not – nor will ever be – the will behind the movement of everything that is let and the lettable, everything that I am and am not, everything that is and is not. I am to cease supposing that my will is what moves the Universe when, in reality, I am moved as part of it. Neither is it that the Universe rotates around someone in particular, for we are all included in its coming and going. The only thing that permits the Universe itself above the Universe, is what is most absolutely universal of all the universalities: Nothingness.
In the end, above and below everything, whether or not it is accepted, whether or not it is seen, whether or not it is wanted, Nothingness is.
Conclusion
The only thing that is forever, is Never; for never does never end, which is why it is always there. Even when there may not be anything, that Never – as a condition – prevails. For there would never be a manner in which something could once again be; and, if there were a manner of it, then the interconnection of such continuity would never end. Change makes the being’s always impossible, which is why always never is, other than not being.
Nobody’s space is potentially Everybody’s place. Our possibility is to occupy nobody’s space. And, in order to occupy that place, some concrete person must leave the previous place that he occupied, which will now remain as a new Nobody’s space. The only thing that truly is Being, is Nothingness; for even when everything that is ends, Nothingness will prevail. The Nothingness that could allow a new rebirth in the Being, is that same Being’s sustainment upon permitting it; for Nothingness is. If Nothingness is not contemplated, we cannot contemplate ourselves either; there is no self-knowledge possible. To recover Nothingness upon dying, will be the indication that we have recovered upon detaching ourselves from selfness.
Nothingness is the motive to think that our miseries make sense, that life is worthwhile, that the tears have not drowned what we are; and, that behind the darkness, that fearful daily darkness, there is still a little light that outlines our strengths. Simply thinking about Nothingness turns anguish into yearning, vitalizes agony, and sharpens breathing.
To contemplate Nothingness is a life or death act. Not regarding the fact that we will die, but with regard to us ceasing to be dead. No, it is not that we are alive now. We have died some time ago. We die upon being born; and we need to allow the death of what has been born in order to once again be born. Let us prepare the funeral of the self, bury what shreds us from within. To contemplate Nothingness is to understand that there is no life without devotion. And to have devotion is to be willing to die without reservations, for a life that is wanted to be forever maintained is not worthwhile. It is time to return to the origin, to stun the self, to place one’s remains (leftover from the ego) over this existence’s (Nothingness’s) guest’s table.
References
- Llano, Carlos. 2004. Etiología de la idea de la Nada, México: FCE.
- Watts, Alan. 1981. Nueve Meditaciones, Barcelona: Kairós.