Essence of Nothing

In order to be a conceptual abstract artist, you have to be comfortable with conceptual abstract ideas. As a result I love philosophical thought. I follow a philosopher named David Proud on LinkedIn. I always enjoy his posts as they are always a challenge - and I like that. He recently posted this Hegelian quote:

‘In [the sphere of] essence, therefore, the becoming … is the movement from nothing to nothing and therefore back to itself. Transition or becoming sublates itself in its transition; the other which comes into being in this transition is not the nothing of a being, but the nothing of a nothing, and this, to be the negation of a nothing, constitutes being. - Being is only as the movement of the nothing to the nothing, and so it is essence; and essence does not have this movement within itself, rather it is this movement as absolute appearance itself, pure negativity with nothing outside itself to negate, but which rather negates only its own negativity, and which exists only in this negating.’

‘This immediacy, which is only as the returning of the negative into itself, is the immediacy which constitutes the determinateness of appearance and from which the previous movement of reflection seemed to begin. But, far from being able to start from this immediacy, this immediacy exists only as the returning or as the reflection of itself. Reflection is therefore the movement which constitutes that which begins or returns only by being itself the returning’.

- Hegel, ‘The Logic of Reflection, in ‘The Science of Logic', 1820.

Ooooo – such a delicious quote. I have always thought (or rather have been taught through logic) that nothing + nothing = nothing. That you have to have something in order to have something. What a turn this Hegelian quote posed for me.  It is fun to think differently about nothing.

I have been traveling the path of mystical thought – mysteries – miracles – glorious impossible things and why they might happen. I have been thinking that ideas are nothing more than reflective thought floating round in the air - mesquites waiting to land and bite you so you can say “Aha!” I just had an idea land on me – what do I want to do with it? That is the nothing coming into being – movement.

The trick is the desire and ability to receive this wonderful, mystical movement of nothing and bring it into being. It is the very act of creating. It is saying - yes yes yes - and bringing it to life. Wild and crazy – this essence of nothing.