Nothing to Become

Nothing to Become
by Scott Bradley

There is a sense in which all existing is a becoming, even if there is nothing to become. All things are transitory. The seemingly unique human experience is to be a nothing in search of a something, an emptiness seeking fullness.

Let the way now part; it shall part times again without number. It does not matter; the world will not fall asunder. No souls will be lost.

Some would seek that filling, believe in the promise of fullness, that there is something to become. And though they may never arrive at that something, the becoming will have been tempered and made a tenuous something thereby. There is purpose in the pursuit of purpose whether any purpose be found or no. Or perhaps, there is something to become and some that find it. I do not know.

Others would embrace and nurture the emptiness — mine its existential riches, be a becoming with nothing to become, and find purpose in no purpose at all. Perhaps to be utterly empty is to be full. I do not know; but this is the path I take.

Yet none of this is what I want to say of 'nothing to become', except, perhaps, by way of creating context. I tell myself there is nothing to become when I fail to become the something I would. For it is this striving to become something which is an essential expression of the tyranny I wish to transcend. The belief that we must be something-in-a-specific-way — not only be a something, but a certain kind of something — is, I believe, at the heart of what binds us. For, yes, I also believe we are bound in such a way as to be unable to fully enjoy the gift of human experience. This experience of self-consciousness is, after all, a recently emerging phenomenon with many a wrinkle to possibly iron out.

There is nothing to become, because the becoming is already the something we are. And the something we are does not require that we be anything else. This is it.

Yet still I have failed to say what I wish of 'nothing to become'. But you have heard it many times before, for this is really all I, for the moment at least, have to say: You are at this very moment, just as you are, no matter how you are, Reality; for Reality is always and only just what is, whatever that is. There is nothing to become because there are no conditions to meet to be who you presently are. There is no stairway to heaven, moral or ontic — it is always just this. “This is the lotus land.”

Reality is Now One, and awaits no fulfillment in you or itself. To realize this, is to close the gap, 'falsely imagined', and to be a becoming with nothing to become. And thus, you become.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.