A Blog About Nothing

People used to say that the TV show Seinfeld was a show about nothing. Turns out that the original premise was for a show about how a comedian finds material for his show. That’s why each of the first season’s episodes ended with Jerry Seinfeld on stage doing a bit related to the episode we’d just watched. The show about nothing was about something after all. After the first three seasons, the clips of Seinfeld on stage stopped, and the show really was about nothing, unless it was about loosely connected somethings that four friends recognized in each other.

Sometimes something is nothing, and nothing is something. When I ask my wife, “What’s wrong?” and she says, “Nothing,” it’s almost a sure bet that nothing means something. Because it’s my nature to want to find answers that solve problems, my immediate response is to try to suggest something that might be of help. Most of the time, the most helpful something I can suggest is nothing. (It took me a long time to learn that lesson.)

Apropos of nothing, my old dissertation advisor used to believe that some things (Truths) were absolute. Plato believed that absolute Truths were the only things that were real, and that these Truths were completely abstract. That is to say, they had no material substance, and were thus made of nothing. Socrates used to search for these absolute Truths. Turned out he was best at telling you that the things you thought were Truths were not true at all, and, therefore, nothing. Socrates believed that absolute Truth could only be recognized by the mind. Truth couldn’t be articulated in words. When asked, “What is Truth?” Socrates replied, “It’s nothing to speak of.”* Socrates thought his community had lost sight of the Truth and was in danger of destroying itself, that is, of becoming nothing. He told his community that he was their savior, because he alone knew that he knew nothing. This annoyed his community, and they put him to death.

* To my knowledge, this conversation never actually occurred.

A seventh-century Indian mathematician named Brahmagupta is credited with discovering nothing. Which is to say that he is credited with inventing the zero—not just as a placeholder, but as a numeral. One day he shouted, “I have invented the zero!” His associate asked, “What’s that?” To which Brahmagupta responded, “Nothing, nothing.”**

** To my knowledge, this conversation never actually occurred, either.

Freddy Mercury sang, “Nothing really matters.” He was right. Nothing matters a great deal! Physicists have told me that everything*** in the universe is made of molecules, and that molecules are made of atoms. Atoms, I’m told, consist of 99.999% empty space, and the remaining .001% isn’t solid, either. Atoms, then, are made of nothing. Everything is nothing, and nothing is everything. Nothing matters? Indeed!

*** “Everything” includes energy as well as mass, because Einstein said that energy and mass are different forms of the same thing.

Mystic meditation is all about nothing. The trick is to focus the mind on one point: an object, a word, meaningless syllables, a sensation, an experience. Everything else is expelled from the mind, and then the point of focus disappears. Everything becomes nothing, and freed from sensation, desires, doubts, memories, and thoughts, the mind expands to embrace everything. What is the sound of one hand clapping? It is nothing. It is everything. It is nothing.

Some people say that nihilism is a belief in nothing. That’s not true. Nihilism is the belief that life has no inherent meaning, and that values and cultural beliefs are artificial constructs created by humans. Many nihilists seek to create meaning for their own lives out of nothing. Turns out nothing is filled with infinite potential. As a result, many nihilists choose some pretty funky meaning for themselves. And that makes them annoying. That’s the problem with unlimited choice. We all want to be free to choose what we want for ourselves, right? Sure, but that doesn’t mean we want everyone else to be.

I had nothing to write about; therefore, this has been a blog about nothing. My sincere hope is that you learned something from it, specifically, that you learned nothing. No, don’t thank me. In fact, think nothing of it.