Existence, Nothingness, Patterns, and Words (and the self)
There exist two opposing states: existence, in all of its unlimited possibility; and nothingness. All of existence comes from the nothingness.
In our struggle to come to terms with our own existence and that which exists in context, we can easily see our observations, emotions and the day to day occurrences themselves as having some greater meaning, fitting into some pre-existing patchwork explaining everything. Many people find this meaning in religious teachings, and many other people piece together a meaning of their own from an ever expanding and increasingly easy to access collection of human knowledge (the internet, books, etc).
What makes us Human and different from other animals is the written and spoken language, which allows us to communicate to each other, among other things, these far reaching and personally significant meanings in and of life. Part of that requires these meanings and statements of value, retellings of experience or emotions to take on greater significance and weight, thus having the effect of making the words themselves more real than the existence or experience itself. This is the point at which people’s words effect each other very easily, when language used triggers memories and seeming relevencies that allow the listener or reader to feel a shared sense of whatever is being described. What many people do not keep in mind is that the words used are not the experience, nor are they the existence.
When we observe the “outside world”, we look for what we can recognize or make sense of. By contrast, what we cannot recognize or make sense of can hardly be observed at all in that we do not possess he experiences that would allow for the recognition of significance to occur. Thus, when new things happen (as they do every day), it is decidedly easier to attribute them to an imagined pattern or see them as part of a series of events. This is not incorrect, it is a part of what makes us and allows us to be human. But the recognition of the pattern is an act of creation out of nothingness, just like the use of language to describe meaning.
This can be likened to the drawing of complex patterns or geometric structures on graph paper. What exists is the graph paper, and on it we impose patterns that we “see”. By “seeing” the pattern, and especially by drawing it, we are participating in the act of creation by pulling something out of the nothingness. Infinite possibilities of patterns or non-patterns can be imposed upon a sheet of graph paper, but ultimately what exists is the grid and the imagination that sees designs in the grid, connecting the dots and lines as a mirror like expression of itself.
