Nothing

A Theory

As defined by Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary

Nothing: adv: not at all; in no degree.

Nothing: n: something that does not exist b: the absence of all magnitude or quality.

Nothingness: n: the state of being insignificant b: death c: void, emptiness: a metaphysical entity opposed to and devoid of being

What is nothing? A blank page, you might say. An empty book. An unfulfilled pledge. A simple, seven letter word. An absence of something, the ignorant may claim.

WRONG.

What do we, as tiny, tiny, insignificant humans, think of when we say ‘nothing’? Because ‘nothing’ is HUGE, right? It’s the end of the universe. What do we picture?

White. Empty. Cold. Silent. Absence.

Again, wrong.

Because, and here we get deep, white is something. It is the combination of all colors. Oh yeah, you say, right. The prism. So it is black.

Wrong…

Black is the absence of color, yes. But, absence IS something. It is a lack. It exists in its non existence. It is something, something you can refer too. So absence is not ‘nothing’, because absence is something! And something is the opposite of nothing, so absence is the opposite of nothing. So then, existence is nothing? AH HAH! Trapped! So it is not white, black, clear, or purple. It is a white so dark you can’t see your hand, and a black so light you are instantly blinded by its scorching whiteness.

Ooooh, you say, my brain hurts.

It gets worse.

Next, empty. Again, what is empty? An absence? We’ve been over this, stupid. Absence is something, so existence, or being full, is ‘nothing’. That doesn’t work. So ‘nothing’ is and emptiness so full you suffocate, you are squished beneath infinite pressure. It is fullness so empty, you bleed loneliness, you cry desperation.

Oh, you say, so dramatic.

NO EXAGGERATION HERE, PEOPLE!

So let’s move on to cold. Cold is, you could say, slowly moving particles. A biting feeling that you blood is becoming ice. But, it is that—a feeling. And (you guessed it), a feeling is something! So hot is ‘nothing’? Wrong. ‘Nothing’ is a cold so hot your skin melts off and a hot so cold your tears make frozen tracks down your cracking cheeks.

Alright, you say, I’m getting this.

YEAH RIGHT, I scoff.

Next is silent. But silence is (of course), the absence of sound, which is something, which is the opposite of nothing…getting the pattern yet? So, theoretically, ‘nothing’ is a silence so loud you are on your knees with popped and bleeding ear drums, and a sound so quiet your dog can’t hear it. Your freaking pet bat can’t hear it!

Do I even have to go through absence?

No, you say, I understand. I know ‘nothing’.

SHUT UP! STOP SAYING THAT!

What would happen, I wonder, if a human came across ‘nothing’? Not the absence of something, but sheer ‘nothing’. The absence of absence and the lack of thought, idea. The complete NOT. Maybe we already answered that. Maybe we can’t see but we’re blinded, we are squished but bleed loneliness, claustrophobic but cry desperation, desolation. Maybe our skin melts off, our tears make frozen tracks and our cheeks crack, our eardrums pop but we can’t hear anything. Maybe all these contradictions happen simultaneously, and everything cancels out, so ‘nothing’ (haha) happens. Maybe we spontaneously combust. Maybe.

Then again, maybe not.

Maybe, ‘nothing’ is something totally crazy. A pastel colored café, or a black room full of faceless people, or an endless space containing broken dreams and bleeding hearts. Maybe it’s something, everything, anything, many things. Maybe it is more opposites- anything, everything so little it doesn’t exist, existence so small it is nothing. ‘Nothing’?

Maybe.

Then again, maybe not.

The truth of the matter is, I don’t know. You don’t know. No one knows. Because the human mind is too small, too insignificant, to imagine something so hugely relevant, so enormously, mind bogglingly different. Something with so many immensely diverse, infinite possibilities that most people just ignore it, let it go. But really, you have to think about it. It is just too bizarre. But we will never know, will never be able to imagine, because NO ONE will EVER witness that incredible desolation called ‘nothing’.

Tell me that’s not depressing.

Really, ‘nothing’ is one of those mind numbing subjects that you can only think about once every 2 ½ months if you don’t want a) your head to explode or b) to sink into a gnawing depression. Because if you think about the universe, it hurts. It’s HUGE! Then you think, but the universe ends somewhere (because we can’t imagine forever either, though that’s a whole new can of worms), which makes the size incredible. Then you think, there’s nothing else out there, and it hurts your head to think that our universe is the only thing, that the Big Bang was one small speck in a bunch of ‘nothing’. And that makes you realize how unimportant we are, and how important ‘nothing’ could be. So then, you try to picture, to figure out, what ‘nothing’ is, and your brain screams STOP! DON’T GO INTO THE LIGHT!

It hurts, I know.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter, since we’ll never experience it, except in death if there is no afterlife (which, again, opens a whole new can of worms). But it is always there, that stupid ‘nothing’, at the edge of the universe, and at the edge of our minds.

So, in conclusion…

What is nothing? We use it way too often for what it is and what it isn’t. When someone says “What’s wrong”, the answer, “Nothing” is so incorrect it’s frustrating. Unless, at that point, you are reading this and the problem is ‘nothing’. We can’t imagine the stupid, impossibility of No Thing, the absence of absence itself. It is something we can’t picture and never will. It is everything, but not anything. In it we bleed loneliness and cry out from the pressure, are blinded and in the dark. It is an absence, not an absence, a something, but no thing. It is an impossibility, but we know it exists. If you put it into any equation, you come back with things like sound is nothing; silence is nothing; LIFE IS NOTHING. So maybe, we are so insignificant, life is ‘nothing’, but everything can not be ‘nothing’! So we have to assume it is something completely different, unexperienced. Something new, and scary. That simple seven letter word, ‘nothing’, defined by Webster as “not any thing: something that does not exist: the absence of all magnitude or quantity”, is a walking contradiction. An impossibility, because the definition, also by Webster, of absence is “noun: lack”. Noun. A thing. A something. It is impossible to us, so we guess.

I know you still think of ‘nothing’ as white and silent, and maybe it is, because no one knows. No one ever will. Maybe it is.

Then again, maybe not.