Being Held Out into the Nothing
It is early April. Outside, spring has arrived in its quiet Nordic way—about 10 degrees Celsius, and the sun has just begun to warm the air. The light feels different now. Softer, yet more insistent.
It is 7:00 AM. I have already been sitting in my study for an hour.
In front of me lies a book I keep returning to: What Is Metaphysics? by Martin Heidegger. I have read it many times. And still—I am not finished with it. Some books are like that. They do not end. They continue to speak, but only when we are ready to listen again.
This morning, I stop at a single sentence:
“Da-sein heißt: Hineingehaltenheit in das Nichts.”
I translate it, for myself, like this:
Da-sein means: being held out into the Nothing.
And then I cannot read any further.
When a Sentence Stops You
There are moments in reading where something happens—not intellectually first, but existentially. A sentence does not just inform; it interrupts. It holds you.
This is such a moment.
What does it mean to be “held out into the Nothing”? Not thrown. Not abandoned. But held.
The word carries a tension: something both sustaining and unsettling.
And immediately, my thoughts turn to Søren Kierkegaard.
Anxiety and the Edge of Freedom
In The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard—writing as Vigilius Haufniensis—offers one of the most profound insights into what it means to be human.
He draws a distinction that still feels clinically precise today:
Fear has an object. Anxiety does not.
The object of anxiety is:
Nothing.
But this “Nothing” is not emptiness in a trivial sense. It is possibility.
Kierkegaard writes that anxiety is “the reality of freedom as the possibility of possibility.” This is a remarkable formulation. It suggests that anxiety is not merely something we suffer—it is something we are exposed to as beings who are free.
We stand on the edge of possibility.
And that edge is not solid ground.
It is Nothing.
Falling Into—or Standing Within
In lived experience, anxiety often feels like something that overtakes us. It comes, it grips, it unsettles. We may feel as if we are falling.
Kierkegaard describes this almost as a kind of misrelation—a yielding, a slipping. Anxiety becomes overwhelming when we lose ourselves in it.
But Heidegger offers a subtle shift.
What if we are not simply falling into Nothing—but already held within it?
This changes everything.
The Nothing is no longer just a threat. It becomes a condition of existence.
Heidegger and the Openness of Being
Heidegger writes:
Nothing is neither an object nor a being at all. It occurs neither by itself nor alongside beings. Nothing is the condition for the openness of beings as such for human existence… In the Being of beings, the nihilation of Nothing occurs.
This is difficult language. It resists simplification. But perhaps it can be approached in this way:
The Nothing is not “something.”
But without it, nothing could appear as meaningful.
It is the clearing—the open space—within which beings can show themselves.
And we, as human beings, are not outside this clearing.
We are held within it.
The Forgotten Question
And yet, Heidegger insists that we have forgotten this.
He calls it Seinvergessenheit—the forgetfulness of Being.
We move through the world naming, categorizing, explaining. We focus on what things are (what he calls Was-sein), but lose sight of that they are at all (Das-sein).
In Plato’s Doctrine of Truth, Heidegger uses the image of the cave:
- Inside the cave, we deal with definitions, categories, representations.
- Outside the cave, there is exposure—existence itself, unshielded.
Truth, he suggests, lies not in choosing one over the other, but in the tension between them.
In what is concealed.
In what calls us out of ourselves.
Why I Return to This Book
This is why I return to Heidegger.
Not because I fully understand him.
But because I do not.
Because a single sentence can open something that cannot be closed again.
Because it reminds me that thinking is not only about clarity—but about staying with what is unclear, without reducing it too quickly.
Perhaps this is also a form of practical philosophy.
Not providing answers we can draw two lines under.
But helping us remain present in the questions that shape a life.
A Quiet Ending
So I sit here, in the early morning light.
The book is still open.
I have not read further.
And yet—I feel that something has already happened.
It is no wonder I must read this book many times,
when even a single sentence can hold me like this.
References
Aarnes, A., & Wyller, E. (Eds.). (1962). Hva er metafysikk? (G. Fløistad, Trans.). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Cole, J. (1971). The concept of anxiety: A critical analysis of Kierkegaard’s work. Princeton University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1961/1997). Nietzsche (Vols. 1–2). San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins.
Heidegger, M. (2000). Platon: Sannhetens vesen (K. T. Pettersen, Trans.). Oslo: EPOS.
Heidegger, M. (2004). What is metaphysics? In D. F. Krell (Ed.), Basic writings (pp. 93–110). New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Kierkegaard, S. (1980). The concept of anxiety (R. Thomte, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1844)
With what I have lived, and what I have understood so far - I take my next step
I have written this text, and OpenAI/ChatGPT has created the illustrations in a dialog with me and the written text.
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