I don't comprehend that either. It's like trying to solve a riddle by reducing it to a greater enigma, as someone once said.
"First there was nothing, then there was existence"
Well, there never was nothing. Just because we can formulate this sentence doesn't mean it makes sense. So to say that nothing is, is just an artefact of our language since without anything a temporal dimension doesn't make sense.
So when one says "the universe always existed", always means all points in time which make sense. However, this period doesn't have to go infinitely far back. This is just the same with the latitudes on a globe: if you go north you can reach the north pole but that's it, there is no point which is north of the north pole.
No, it's not satisfactory to me in the slightest that existence seems so ultimately unexplainable, but it gives me no satisfaction to explain it with something utterly beyond comprehension.
Well said, but it seems that for most people any answer is better than no aswer at all or an honest "I don't know".
Even in a theoretical perfect vacuum, the laws of the universe are present - awaiting matter. This "nothing" is not nothing, only devoid of matter. Some might phrase this as "nothingness." Not nothing.
"First there was nothing, then there was existence"
Have you ever heard of "Vacuum Genesis"?