Saturday, August 11, 2007

Top level communication: Quest detours

On Aug 11, 2007, at 8:09 AM, jon dieks wrote:

oh nothing . net how do i thank you it has been many ,many month's since our last e-mail. i wanted to thank you for your encourgement in my quest for nothingness, and as in our last corispodance you told me my journey to nothing has begun. i wondered what you meant about taking nothing seriously and ponderd enormously about it , and then all these signs started pointing my in directions, leading me nowhere, and then i found it! my golden apple, and am now a proud poee of discordia! and now all things make sense and nothing makes sense. in a way nothing did before. so i just wanted to thank you (actually the goddess eris commanded it of me) and as a acting poee of discordianism a declare you



























!! (and remember "to eris human"

To which I replied:

Hi Jon,

Thank you for your further comments on a topic that means nothing more to me than it does to you. As for my words of uncouragement, I need clarify my statement before I go any further. I am pretty sure that what I said was, "Your infinite journey has begun." I admire your eagerness, but I have to express that in my arrogant opinion, a few months is a very short turnaround on an infinite journey. In fact, it seems that your journey has ended (give or take) about an eternity too soon.

I already know what you're thinking, so I'll just say it, "Infinity loops back on itself, ergo any exit point on my journey could be considered as the end of an infinite cycle." First, I must applaud you for thinking of such a brilliant wrong argument. If time were circular, that argument would have some merit. With so much talk about space-time we may sometimes forget that time has no spacial properties. Time is something that is measured by its arrival and/or passing. Or to look at it another way, the function a clock performs is keeping track of time. If a clock stops, we do not conclude that time has stopped, or that our work on this planet is done. We simply replace the clock.

I submit that you have been following broken signs leading you to a big bad apple. I think that you simply started in the wrong figurative direction, by pondering enormously about it. (By your use of the word "it" I'm assuming you mean the infinite journey.) You may have done better by thinking about it "at length". Although at first glance, "at length" may seem to be attributing spacial qualities to time, it is merely a way of expressing that one has taken his course through time dealing with or pondering on the matter at hand. Even if we were to view time as a chart we would see a linear progression in this case rather than a circle or a lazy 8.

You also call yourself a POEE of the goddess Eris. By POEE, I can only assume that you mean Powertrain Operations & Engine Engineer. What I'm wondering is what sort of operation is Eris running over there? I knew that the American Auto industry was in the proverbial poo bucket, but now this is all beginning to make sense. Personally, I wouldn't put someone with her track record at the helm of a sinking ship.

I have a tip for you, don't listen to commands from an apple tossin' banshee. It tends to cause trouble, and as we all know, trouble isn't nothing.

I wish you well on your CONTINUING journey. As for your e-mail, great use of negative space and a wickedly bad pun, really, really bad. Freud has been referenced many times as saying that the pun is the lowest form of wit. But Freud would have said anything to get a peek inside the pants of your mind. If indeed Freud did say this, he could have at least delivered it as a pun. Low is almost nothing.

Thank you for your continued interest in nothing.

--Xymyl

Friday, August 10, 2007

Comments: Nothing is wrong with nothing

On Aug 10, 2007, at 3:14 PM, BF wrote:

Hello Xymyl:
I have been enjoying very little about your blog. I hesitate to say "nothing" about it, but there is something about your nothingness you may have overlooked. That "is" this: Nothingness has "it's" flaws. "It's" flaws are an unnecessary apostrophe at the least. "Its" is a word which is possessive without adding an apostrophe. So the unneeded punctuation adds something to an otherwise quite clean and featureless nothingness. Please ignore any typos of my own, as they must be construed as nothing of importance. Have a day!
Your whatever,
B. French

To which I responded:

Hi BF,

Glad to see that you are unjoying the blog. Thank you too for your con-structive comments. However, I take exception to the idea that there is anything to my nothingness.

Actually, I can't remember the original reason that I started doing that (by "that", I mean "it's"). Although it probably had something to do with the fact that pure nothing, the REAL nothing, the "best" nothing, isn't. Thus, when referring to nothing "it" isn't a pronoun (which is also why it's in quotes). I believe that the original thought was along the lines that "it" was going to be separated from its "s" by an apostrophe as a way of further defining that the possessive form was merely a literary tool and not in any way an indication that "it" was anything.

Since I have noticed over the years that this device has not necessarily cleared up the issue, I have often thought of changing my "it's"'s. But a coping device I can use is to pretend that having the point obscured means that nothing (nothing being the general comprehension of nothing as a concept) makes sense, thus everything (everything being the literal devices required to explain nothing) makes sense. Any intelligent person can see that this is a feeble way of reasoning, but it seems to be working anyway. Besides, I can't go back to 1995 and edit those old e-mails up to the present day. So, I have mostly chosen to stick with it. It, of course, being my use of "it's"'s.

None of us should take this here mutt language of English too seriously. We should embrace its flaws and capitalize on them, of course. But we should also feel free to make up new words as needed, and change spellings to fit road signs rather than changing the sign width or font size. Put some florp in your snazzle, because your lingo won't have any flavor if it ain't got juice. People may come here for the grammar, but they stay for no good reason.

Thanks for your general disinterest in nothing. Please keep up the good work.

--Xymyl (KON)

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Comments: Nothing inspirational

Okay, I don't usually post my replies to blank e-mails. So by posting this, I am not suggesting that I will start posting responses to all the blank e-mails I receive. This particular e-mail had a subtle confidence to it that unspired me. Obviously, anyone else who sends similar blank e-mails will be acknowledged as well. So without further ado, the letter and my response...

On Aug 5, 2007, at 7:12 AM, allan godshall wrote:

To which I replied:

Thanks for the uncouragement. Your e-mail said "it" all. Just the boost I needed to keep doing nothing all the live-long day. Sometimes nothing seems a vain pursuit, or even a poorly thought out business, but then someone like you comes along and put's everything into perspective. Or do I mean out of perspective? Doesn't really matter. The fact is that you've given me a renewed sense of lack of purpose. I'm going to get back off that horse and try and find a blank space to lie in and just... dwell on the past.

Thanks. I can tell that you really know nothing, and that is a gift to treasure (treasure meaning to put aside or lock away).

--Xymyl (KON)

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Fanmail: Nothing for emphasis

On Aug 4, 2007, at 5:51 PM, Caroline and Annalee wrote:

nothing nothing nothing
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nothing nothing nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

To which I responded:

Thanks for the great work!

And you know what 324 times nothing is right? That's right, it's nothing. You almost made something out of it with the triumphant addition of 39 exclamation marks. But you packaged it up neatly with a question mark to save the day. You are to be commended for your poignant use of repetition and punctuation to emphasize nothing. Of course I had to take the time to count them all. It's the least I could do for someone who was willing to do all this for nothing. You score extra points for for your excellent time sponging skills. Keep "it" up.