That which characterises human existence, according to existentialists, is a certain openness, or indeed indeterminacy. Without this openness, without this indeterminacy, there would simply be no human existence. All that is deemed essence, in human existence, flows from this very openness, and carries, within it, the indeterminacy of its origins. Nothing in human existence will last forever. Human existence floats on indeterminacy. The present is future (i.e. the potential for the new) to a much greater extent than it is the determined result of a weighty past.