Spirital Atelier

That’s what I’ve done today.

Nothing. No classes, no research, no homework, no studying, no stressing about next week. Nothing. I have accomplished Nothing, and I see myself doing Nothing. If this were a strange occurence, I might be compelled to dismiss it. But I do Nothing far too often, and thus it’s a state of being.

I’ve done Something before. It’s hard to be a junior in college without having done Something at some point. But Nothing, to me, just has an appeal to it. It’s far more comfortable. Like a second skin. Like a shirt and shoes. Like singing should sound.

Nothing moves me, I feel. I am driven to do Nothing quite regularly; it’s part of who I am. And this scares me.

You see, Nothing is frivolous. Nothing is a waste of time. Nothing is a spit in the face of forces beyond us that enable us. Nothing is everything my friends and family want me to not be. But here’s the catch – if I were to choose Nothing, I would get Nothing. There’s no misunderstanding. There’s no ambiguity. Just exactly what I asked for.

Something can means something. Something can lasts longer than the last. Something can affirm anything and everything we want it to. Something can be wonderful. But Something is variable. Random. Fickle, on occasion. If I choose to do Something, I don’t get Something all the time. I can get a lot more Something than I put in; I can get a fraction of Something; I can get Nothing.

And you can get away with Nothing now and again in other fields. Theatre requires that you do Something because it sets itself up as Something. English doesn’t promise to be Something. It promises to work, to express ideas. Political Science doesn’t guarantee that it is Something. It guarantees that it works, that it describes power and government. Mathematics doesn’t prove that it is Something. It proves that it works, that it establishes numerical relationships. Theatre sets itself up as Something, as a transcendental experience that expresses ideas, describes power, establishes relationships, and anything else we can think for it to do.

Something is harder to do than Nothing – a world harder. To do Something, you have to compel yourself. You have to do. You don’t have to do anything to do Nothing. Nothing is, as I said, a state of being, an inert existence. It’s not doing Something. But you can’t do Nothing and expect Something. It’s just stupid.

So my fear is – am I stupid?

It’s a marvel what capitalization can let you do.