Clearly, your chair very easily could not have existed. Now this possibility of ‘not-having-been-there’ is a key feature of dependent things. Something that has this feature requires an explanation for its existence. This is because for something that might not have existed, you can easily ask: Why does this thing exist? That perfectly legitimate question calls for an explanation. It cannot be that the thing exists on its own, because there is nothing necessary about its existence. To say that the thing somehow explains itself would be to deny the property of dependence we just discussed.
