Arising from "nothing"

You may have heard the expression that life is a theater and all the world is a stage. The analogy often goes on to express that people are actors on that stage, like characters in a movie.

In many ways, this analogy is an expression of what ails us. Any particular actor on that stage swears that he or she is the only one, and that all the other actors are just characters that set the scene and offer interaction. When the interaction goes badly the actor forgets about being an actor and really thinks that something awful is happening, and that the results will mean something horrible... like death. So what does the actor do? He acts. He tries to beg and plead his way out of the plot, even though the script is already written. It's all quite unfortunate.