In Being and Nothingness Sartre argues that everything and nothing are tied together. By saying there’s something means there was the possibility of there being nothing. Even before you said there was something, there could have been nothing. The idea of you reading this implies the idea of you not reading this.
And how is this supposed to make us feel? Sartre talks a lot about “nihilation” as opposed to “annihilation”. Nihilation is weaker than annihilation in the sense that something that is nihilated is not destroyed, but rather it is pushed back into the background of everything. The act of you living, breathing, or reading implies nihilation according to Sartre. Your focus is always somewhere. If you are focused on these words, then the space behind you, your friends, the outside, nature, and basically the rest of the universe is nihilated. You did that. Yes. You nihilated the universe.
But nihilation doesn’t just have to be restricted to space. Living in the present necessitates that you nihilate the past and the future. (Back to the first paragraph–placing yourself in the present means placing nothing of yourself in the past or future.) However, Sartre was an existentialist, so there’s something to say about anxiety here. Think about it: what about your past or future self? Placing them in nothing, nihilating them, what good does that do to your conscious? They just don’t exist to you as if they didn’t have the power to change your life.
Towards the end of all this, freedom pops up. We have the freedom to nihilate across the universe and time. However, this freedom brings us anxiety for we don’t know what is the nothing that lies outside your room, the nothing of your future self, or the nothing of the terrible thought you’ll have in a minute or two. Just when you thought you had something, there’s is always nothing.
