An Ode to Nothing

A note on silence.

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

It’s hard to write a post about nothing.

I’m going to try.

A long time ago, I read entire books about silence and nothing. At some point, I came across the research on how our brains process silence. Our brains treat silence like sound. So, silence isn’t nothing. Neither is nothing.

Right now, it’s exactly what many of us need.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of vapid noise hitting me from all directions for the past few weeks. Everyone has an opinion and a prediction, but 99 percent of them no longer connect with reality. The algorithms hit me with everything from “we’re going to starve in 8 weeks” to “Trump is totally going to resign in six months” to “buy a gun for democracy.”

And… I’ve had enough.

No, I’m not going to go buy a firearm and join the fictitious armed revolution. I’m not going to cheer any politician’s latest bid for attention. Honestly, I don’t feel like protesting anything at the moment. I don’t feel like getting involved with any movements. I don’t feel like endorsing anyone’s side in an argument. I’m glad to hear that data centers are falling behind schedule and getting canceled, and this or that politician is finally getting some stuff done.

I don’t feel like forwarding someone else’s cause.

Right now feels like a time for reflection, because whew boy, did all the talking heads just recently get a bunch of stuff wrong, or what? The bad predictions and fruits of false hope have really been piling up lately.

The stench is…

So, it’s refreshing not to have any new opinions on anything for once. At the moment, I have no new predictions. I have no new warnings. I have nothing to prove that we haven’t gone over a dozen times. Based on what I’m reading, neither does anyone else. They’re simply regurgitating.

What we have in front of us is enough.

It feels like the world needs to be quiet right now, but it’s not. It’s loud. To paraphrase David Byrne, everyone’s talking a lot—but they’re not saying anything. They’re not listening. They’re just pouring thoughts into a landfill.

There’s a moment that feels like this:

You’ve already expressed your opinion. You’ve already explained your research. You already cited your sources. You already tried to convince the world, and the world rejected all your solutions to all the problems.

Now, here you are.

Silent.

That’s a great time for silence. It’s a great time to stop trying so hard. It’s a great time not to do anything. Nothing is a great space to fill.

Currently, I’m trying to organize our garage to make room for more garden planning, more seed saving, more survival projects. I’m finally getting rid of the last things from my old office at my old job as a professor.

It occurred to me what I’m doing.

I’m making nothing.

I’m emptying.

Sometimes, you have to empty before you can fill. You have to create the nothing before you create the something.

The world often expresses discomfort, even fear at the idea of nothing. Studies show that the average person would rather shock themselves than spend 15 minutes in solitude. They would rather babble and gossip than sit in quiet reflection. We constantly occupy ourselves. We fill our heads, even if it’s with garbage. We mistake clutter for substance. That’s how scared we are of nothing.

But nothing isn’t a void. Empty can be good.

So can meaningless.

Maybe we have far too much meaning in the world already. Maybe we should stop and simply look at or be with parts of the world before we try to ascribe meaning to them. Maybe we should stop asking what every single event “means.” From my perspective, this endeavor seems to be driving us crazy.

Can’t things just happen?

Can’t they just exist?

If we would just focus on that part, without all the need to make noise and find meaning in everything, we might finally find the peace we’re so desperately searching for. It’s right in front of us, and we can just take it.

You don’t need to say anything. You don’t need to join anything. You don’t need to save anything. You don’t need to predict anything. If you just want to lie or sit somewhere and stare for a while, or you just want to go for a long walk, or you just want to clean out your closet… You can just do that.

You don’t need to prove anything.

Not right now.