A Blog About Nothing

Today’s blog is all about nothing. I was sitting around one day wondering if I could write about nothing. It is easy to write about something. You can describe the color or texture or smell of something. But what about nothing? What does nothing smell like? Does it have a shape? I would guess not. It can’t have any shape, smell, texture, sound, or feel if it is nothing.

What exactly is nothing? How do you think about nothing? If you stare at a blank wall is that staring at nothing? I would say no, since what you are staring at has a color, texture, and is a solid object. I tried closing my eyes to focus on nothing. Then I lost my hold on nothing. Thoughts of something crept in again. Darn, this is harder than I imagined!

I tried to figure out how to describe nothing. It’s when you have something, but then it is gone, like when you run out of napkins. But you didn’t really run out; you just used them all up and now they are in the garbage or at the garbage dump. There was that time I stayed at a lodge way out in the country that didn’t have electricity. At night I opened my eyes and I literally saw nothing. Well, nothing but blackness. Does that mean I did see something? Is empty blackness something or is that a visual synonym for nothing?

Maybe I can use the empty glass example. If the glass is empty of all contents and is clean, does it contain nothing? Well, technically it contains air. So would the air around us be a good physical synonym for nothing?

Perhaps I can use sound examples. If you could ensconce yourself in a soundproof room, would you hear nothing? Sadly I would always hear something because I have tinnitus. I can never really hear nothing; that ringing is always there.

My husband tells me there is nothing between our cat’s ears. I’m sure he’s kidding because Neo should have a skull and a brain between his ears. Some days I do wonder though...that cat can be pretty clueless.

The vastness of space even has something in it. Actually there are lots of somethings in outer space.  A black hole might contain nothing, but I don’t know. I think it contains all the things it eats. But what happens to them? If they were converted to some sort of energy then they wouldn’t be nothing...they would be energy. Einstein said matter cannot be destroyed; it is converted to energy instead. I’m guessing that means there should always be a balance of something (matter) and energy. So can nothing exist?

I set out to write a blog all about nothing and it appears I’ve written about something as it relates to nothing. I guess the study of nothing will have to continue until I can figure out how to describe it.