Curious About Nothing? by Hrannar Baldursson

My fellow authors Larry Pace, Judith Bailey, and David Arthur Walters have been writing about nothing lately. This is a dialogue I had with myself after reading their thoughtful contributions to nothing.



"What is nothing?"

"Nothing isn't."

"What isn't nothing?"

"Nothing just isn't!"

"Just isn't? So, is there some justice in the non-being of nothing?"

"Justice? That's an interesting thought. What's justice?"

"We are talking about nothing, aren't we?" "Sorry."

"That's okay. I think nothing is a deep concept. It's interesting because we can use it, and we are able to comprehend it in some manner. Still, it doesn't seem to be anything but a game of words."

"Nothing isn't a word game. I haven't experienced nothing, but I fear it. What will happen if one day I'm riding my Harley through San Francisco and get killed in a crash? I don't believe in God, I believe there will be nothing when I die, and I'm curious about it."

"Curious about Nothing?"

"Yes. Think about it. If it isn't and that's what will happen to us when we die, it must be something... I mean, what will happen to my consciousness, my memories, my self?"

"All of you will fade away into the Nothingness, I guess."

"No. It can't be. My physical parts will never become nothing. Just look up some biology and physics, and you'll see that when something stops being what it is, it will not cease to exist, it will just take on another form."

"Yeah. Dirt becomes dirt and all that crap, you mean?"

"Exactly!"

"The body becomes perhaps some nutrition for flowers or grass, that animals will eat and our children might even eat and nourish on the energy we give to what they eat."

"That's weird man."

"No weirder than the thought that we are all generated from stars that burned out billions of years ago."

"Do you think the universe is finite or infinite?"

"We are talking about nothing now, please stay on task."

"Sorry. Okay. It's just confusing."

"What is?"

"That Nothing isn't, and yet that's our destiny."

"Is it any more weird than believing in Heaven and Hell?"

"Almost."

"You know what I think? I think people who had reached a specific level in their thinking about Nothingness created the ideas of Heaven and Hell. They saw that Nothingness was confusing to those who need answers to everything. There was a gap here in the human consciousness that could be filled and manipulated at will. People would rather believe something concrete, a clear idea with images, rather than the absence of it."

"You may be right."

"Of course I'm right. Have I ever been wrong?"

"Yes."

"That's besides the point. Nothingness goes so deep into the human consciousness that not even thought can capture it. You will never be able to experience Nothingness, simply because if Nothingness had contact with something, it wouldn't be Nothingness."

"You mean, it wouldn't not be Nothingness?"

"Exactly."

"When I have thought of Nothingness in great depth, do you know what overcomes me?"

"Silly fuzzy pleasure?"

"No. Fear. I become mortally afraid. And do you realize what that means?"

"No."

"Fear causes people to act differently than they believe they should behave. If I can generate fear from my own thinking, that means I can have the power of changing myself."

"You what?"

"I can change myself. My attitudes, my longings, my thinking. I can change anything if I just get into that state of thought."

"The movie is about to start."

"No it isn't. It started long time ago, we are just seeing one copy, a reflection of the original thing."

Nada



Dear Mr. Baldursson: You handled Nothing effortlessly. I note your allusion to the motive for concealing Nothing with heaven and hell. Belief in opulent heavens and fiery hells has served the public well. Thus is occluded the Secret of secrets, that Nothing exists. Remember, Miguel de Unamuno's St. Emmanuel the Good, Martyr, believed he was an atheist, yet his exemplary worship of Nothing saved his village. -Editor-
Copyright 2001 Hrannar Baldursson

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