Nothing Is A Good Place To Start
Nothing sounds like the awkward silence at a high school or extended family reunion when after the “ successful” acquaintance or cousin brags about their promotion and recent engagement, the group turns to you expectedly.
Them: What are you up to right now?
You: Nothing much
Them: How is your job going? What were you doing again?
You: I’m unemployed right now.
Them: Oh… how are job prospects? Got anything lined up?
You: No, nothing yet.
Them: Ok, well, how is your love life? I last heard that you were in a relationship.
You: No, that was before. There’s nothing right now.
Them: Well, make the most out of it. Meet some new people and have adventures before you have family and kids locking you down. Got any travel plans?
You: No, none. I can’t afford to travel very much.
Them: Oh… Ok then. Take care.
Yeah, awkward.
Nothing can be embarrassingly empty and awfully vulnerable. Nothing is a thick red zero and a black hole of failure. Nothing is what’s left when you have stripped away all your status symbols and put aside your ego — cold, hungry, barefooted and alone.
Nothing an absence. Yet, it defies the second law of physics by existing as the vacuous feeling within and the space you see. Nothing is what we begin our lives as and what we leave with. Perhaps nothing also encapsulates our existence on this pale blue dot we call Earth.
Nothing confronts with its honest presence. It is wild with uncertainty and laced with judgement. Like the spirits it lives invisibly but once glimpsed, it can never be unseen.
However, examine nothingness without judgement and you might realise a newfound strength from within.
Reflecting on the sudden loss of her husband, COO of Facebook and Lean In founder, Sheryl Sandberg wrote, “I am more vulnerable than I thought, but much stronger than I ever imagined.” Nothing, surprisingly, forces you to define yourself and establish an identity beyond comfort and all that you knew you could do.
Let’s not forget that ex nihilo, from nothing, is the state from which Christians, Muslims and the Jewish believe the universe was formed. “ Look at the birds of the air, for they do not sow nor gather into barns,” reminded Matthew the Apostle. You don’t have to believe in a natural order or divine law to be seduced by grandiose mountains ranges with peaks veiled by a frosty morning fog, frightened by the thunder of a waterfall echoing through the canyon, or lulled by the spring symphony of crickets in the reeds by the riverbend. May all these silence you into a reflective awe to realise, “ Ex nihilo? Perhaps nothing is not all that it seemed”.
For a vacant void, nothing is a firm foundation from which you can stand. Nothing is a challenge. A chance to change and and opportunity to rebuild. Nothing is also a prerequisite for “ I have nothing to lose”. It now makes you invincible with everything to gain.
Nothing, therefore, is a good place to start.
