It’s difficult, if not impossible, to talk about nothing, because as soon as you do, it becomes something.
For instance, if I set out to sing the praises of a day on which I did nothing, then suddenly, automatically, I’ve turned it into an aspiration, and, before you know it, it’s become a project with deadlines and deliverables—no longer nothing; now it’s something.
I try to sit on the couch and do nothing, but in doing it, I’ve done it, and there you go, I’m busy all over again.
The trick is to plan for doing things and then not do them; thus, you create the empty space that gets to be filled in with more empty space; or something like that.
It’s not simply a matter of failing to live up to expectations; the true test is to have no expectations whatsoever—without expecting that to be the case at all.
Ironically, when you do certain things—watch television in the daytime, bite your nails and spit the leftover clippings on the carpet, read mystery stories—you’re actually doing less than if you simply sit quietly and stare at the tip of your nose. The more you do, the less it matters, anyway.
Of course, nothing that anyone does is really anything; even the efforts of the greatest artists in history will eventually be erased by the march of time and the eventual explosion of our sun. When earth is subsumed by the Red Dwarf our star will become, all these many somethings will be reduced to nothings, so why not just get it over with now?
I had plans for the day, but they’ve come to naught; I was going to do something, but now I’ve changed my mind. Thus, for a brief period, at least, I have managed to do nothing, at least insofar as it represents an alternative to something that would have been something.
And that, unfortunately, is something, isn’t it?
For instance, if I set out to sing the praises of a day on which I did nothing, then suddenly, automatically, I’ve turned it into an aspiration, and, before you know it, it’s become a project with deadlines and deliverables—no longer nothing; now it’s something.
I try to sit on the couch and do nothing, but in doing it, I’ve done it, and there you go, I’m busy all over again.
The trick is to plan for doing things and then not do them; thus, you create the empty space that gets to be filled in with more empty space; or something like that.
It’s not simply a matter of failing to live up to expectations; the true test is to have no expectations whatsoever—without expecting that to be the case at all.
Ironically, when you do certain things—watch television in the daytime, bite your nails and spit the leftover clippings on the carpet, read mystery stories—you’re actually doing less than if you simply sit quietly and stare at the tip of your nose. The more you do, the less it matters, anyway.
Of course, nothing that anyone does is really anything; even the efforts of the greatest artists in history will eventually be erased by the march of time and the eventual explosion of our sun. When earth is subsumed by the Red Dwarf our star will become, all these many somethings will be reduced to nothings, so why not just get it over with now?
I had plans for the day, but they’ve come to naught; I was going to do something, but now I’ve changed my mind. Thus, for a brief period, at least, I have managed to do nothing, at least insofar as it represents an alternative to something that would have been something.
And that, unfortunately, is something, isn’t it?
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