The Art of Nothing

None, nothing, nada, zero.

The value of “nothing” is probably underrated. Most people will think that nothing is really something not to be pursued. I mean what’s the meaning of doing anything if the result is nothing, right? Did you earn anything at school? Nothing!

But things become strange if we change the question: What do you worry about today? We want the answer to be: nothing.

Would you rather be given a paper full of things or start with nothing when you want to draw your ideas? You want blank slate.

During pandemic, we are introduced to the emptiness. Where are the people? Why is the city so empty? Why do I only see people delivering stuffs? Why are the beaches and the bushes so empty? You might not be just a few that actually questioning this nothingness.

Well, the pandemic lockdown seems to have passed and people seem to be back to normal, actually even weirder: we see people queueing and crowds everywhere, even though we have less tourists. Prices goes up too. This is because of that emptiness or the gap. It’s almost like the river was blocked, and now the flow is bursting. Lots of energy was suspended.

When we started to reach the point where things are slowly devalued or overvalued, maybe we start to think that “nothing will be left”, thats actually the time we might started to want to find unlimited source.

I watched Seinfeld, the “show about nothing”. It’s probably one of the trigger. It’s like you might have no plan, but if you are put in a situation, in front of camera, with audiences, maybe you actually become something. Not that it’s not okey to be nothing. But the idea is that you can really create something out of nothing. It’s very much human thing. No robot can do this creatively without data.

At the very least, human should be able to dance, make sound, make poem, maybe drawing or writing, build things. Lots of things that are too simple like almost nothing but it’s actually still quite a thing. People think that daydreaming and wandering around just walking without destination is nothing / waste of time, but it’s actually quite a thing in itself, you might find and discover new things when you explore the area by walking.

When you have nothing, you are starting to think and search for something bigger. I think that’s when you get creative.

You might even get a better sleep if you think about nothing. When you are meditating, you are asked to think about nothing, just try the breathing.

Nothing is a struggle and usually you will encounter nothing in life eventually. Like friends will leave you, and maybe you lost your job and your love one, machine got broken, and you end up with nothing. It’s possible, but that’s a start of something new.

I don’t know why I wrote this but I think an empty cup is a beautiful thing. And the gesture of someone to help to fill the cup is a nice thing. So you if you feel empty or nothing, you can give your “nothing” energy for others and it becomes something.