ex nihilo

Being young, and growing up, is like making something out of nothing. You cannot quite tell what you are. You do not know what you want to be. You have scarcely a notion of what you can be or do. And so you make yourself, by differentiating yourself from others. Later the differences will be qualitative; but at first they are only differences of degree.

Gilbert Highet, The Art of Teaching, p. 130