What is 'nothing'?

At first, to those of us unstudied in Philosophy, this question seems simple, and the answer simple: 'Nothing' is simply the absence of something.

But the very fact that one can define 'nothing' means that it, too, is something that can be defined, which means it's no longer just nothing; it has become something.

This is the dilemma that countless thinkers across thousands of years have come up against time and time again. If nothing is something, then is there really such a thing as 'nothing'?

Logically, it is impossible to define 'nothing', because as soon as you define it, you've made it something.

It is as if naming it negates it's meaning. Even thinking of it negates it's meaning. Once it is thought, it becomes something, even if the 'something' is an empty set. An empty set is something. A void is something. A vacuum is something.

Nothing is nothing, there is no such thing as nothing.

True nothing cannot exist.

I don't pretend to be able to logically work this out when the greatest thinkers of over 2000 years have not been able to do so. All I can say is I have now stood at the precipice of logic, the sheer edge of reason, looked over the gut-wrenching bottomless abyss that has swallowed some of the finest, most intelligent and enlightened minds of several millennia, and I am stepping back, because I am not ready to go there yet.

But I will never look at the world quite the same way again.