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My thoughts about nothing - its meaning, the ways we use it in our speech, and the incomprehensible nature of its concept - began with a phone call to my mother.
Allow me to paint a picture: the weekend had just started, and me being the terrific student that I am, I began to work vigorously on homework that I was nearly a week behind on. As I worked my left hand to its Japanese kanji-writing limits, I received salvation from my self-inflicted workload in the form of a FaceTime Video call from Ma. Of course, being so far behind with my work but wanting to remain a good son, I did what any sane person would do.
I stopped working entirely, grabbed a Lunchables Pizza and Powerade out of my fridge to snack on, and answered her.
“Hey, my baby!”
“Hi, Ma.”
“Are you still going to come home for the weekend?”
“Yeah, of course! I told you last week I’d be home.”
“Yay! I’m so excited! So, what are you up to right now?”
“Nothing, just eating.”
But that wasn’t right. After all, I was doing something. I was doing homework just moments prior. And that three-word statement was a spoken contradiction in and of itself, since I told her I was eating!
“Well, don’t eat too much! I’ll cook you something nice when you get home. Chicken and noodles, your favorite!”
“Thank you, Ma! Can’t wait to see you, I’ll be on my way home soon.”
“Be safe! I love you!”
“Love you too, Ma.”
And that was all. The call couldn’t have been longer than forty-five seconds, but that simple phrase stuck with me the entire two and a half hour drive back to my hometown. Nothing, just eating, I’d said. But why nothing? Why did I use a word that is meant to convey an absence, a lack of any and all substance, to describe an action that was very much present? And then I pursued that line of thinking down a strange rabbit hole of sorts. How often do I use nothing? How long have I been doing it? Why is “nothing” so strong and absolute, yet so versatile that even children can use it in a variety of ways beyond its initial meaning?
I thought about it so much that I had tuned out my car’s radio, bumping my favorite songs at max volume. I kept thinking about it the entire way home, until nothing about nothing made sense anymore. Realizing that I was driving in a state akin to highway hypnosis and unable to wrap my head around it on my own, I decided to seek counsel from the wisest person I know.
When I finally returned home, I decided to ask my mom. She stood in the kitchen, lovingly cooking my favorite meal as a welcome home surprise. As I usually did when I returned home these days, I gave her a warm hug, brought in my bag filled with clothes and shower things for the weekend, and waited for dinner to be done. As I watched her cook, I figured now was as good of a time as any to acquire the counsel about nothing I desperately sought.
“Hey, Ma? Don’t you think it’s weird how we say ‘nothing’ in conversation, except we are doing stuff? I mean, it's totally a contradiction. Kinda weird that we just… do that, don’t you think?”
“Not really.”
“... Oh.”
It was then that I finally realized the first truth about it. “Nothing,” above all else, is natural.
As natural as a kid bringing home questions about the world to his dear mother.
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