A common phrase I hear often in Buddhism, they say it’s a good thing to realize but in our society being nothing or nobody is a bad thing. I’m not sure what they mean by it entirely. From what I guess it’s realizing that much of the expectations of how we “ought” and “Should” aren’t true and it’s more about experiencing that full range of being human. When people act “out of character” they say “that’s not me” but if it wasn’t then it wouldn’t happen. I think it’s a sort of freedom from filling a role we think we should be doing.
This is where I got it from: Paul Buchheit: I am nothing
Before I fancied it as some sort of Nihilism but reading this made me consider something else. Made me think how rigid I am in trying to put people into boxes of what “ought” to be so.
Are you nuts? Paul Bucheit, from whom you’ve got this Buddhist-like notion of nothingness, has a net worth of $600 million. I am not suggesting that one has to be dirt poor to attain buddhahood. I am saying that Paul is talking about something else that guys like him, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, and Evan Spiegel understand. American nothingness is what you attain when you break into the ranks of Forbes list of successful people. And they are no Buddhist monks.
This seems to detract from the words being said to be honest.