Something that once existed is no more. Taken, abducted, devoured – gone. And in the face of the absence, the lack, the void, nothingness seems to radiantly manifest the image of what is. Existential thought is trapped in the paradoxical affinity between nothingness and existence. Trapped in the manifestation of the absent against the background of existence, and the revelation of what exist through the absent. Trapped in anxiety and horror at the collapse of the foundations of existence into the abyss of Being. Like the meaning of things that emerges at a time of loss, in the face of lack. In the face of death, in the face of the finiteness of being, in the face of what always surprises, never expected nor prepared for.

Standing before nothingness engenders the distinction between what simply exists, ready to be used, obvious, to what exists within the scope of my care, what belongs to my living environment, what I have an interest in. Nothingness is a place through which one can return to find oneself, and posit oneself in the present. Against the essence of things themselves, and beyond any previous meaning or context. An opportunity to experience sadness, and appreciate life.

Nothingness punctuates the continuum of existence, and by that helps us to notice things, formulate the measure of things, give them meaning.