What do you understand by "to be everything, simultaneously means to be nothing."?

Answer 1

It is the same as "Jack of all trades, master of none."

It takes concentration of effort on one subject to become a master. When you scatter your energies over too many subjects, you can never learn all there is to know about any one of them. Think of the term "Scatter brain".

Look at those "All In One" printer, scanner, fax machines. Sure, they print,scan and fax.... but they do none of these functions extremely well.

Answer 2

Two things: to be everything may bring the realization that you are truly nothing without a certain talent or to be everything means there is nothing left, thus the simutaneous feeling of nothingness.

Answer 3

Such questions make philosophy so interesting and intriguing!! A Star question!!

My layman understanding is as follows

To be everything, not just many things, but everything, it has to lose its identity.... in other words, if it can be everything, we can not identify it as any one thing. What we can not identify as any one thing is nothing, because anything can be identified as something.

Answer 4

i think alot of those sayings, while containing some meaning in there somewhere, are really not true, one is never nothing, to be everything, to me, means to be multiple things, not less then something , though one can get so spread out trying to be everything, that they lose touch with who/what they are

Answer 5

Hmm.. probably just a phrase from someone who smoked too many herbal cigarettes. But I would say that "nothing" is in itself a "something" and therefore is the source of existence.