Tricked by Nothing

On October 28, 2011 Kristian Primeau wrote:
What a conundrum! Being observed by many as having done "...nothing, at all!", I have come to the conclusion that I have, in all actuality, accomplished alot...
Finally, a moment of epiphany... Nothing Is Something!
At last, hope and inspiration build...wait a minute...
I was tricked!

                                                                                                           What can we say...



To which I replied:

Thanks for your musings on the 'state' of nothingness. It can be confusing to many because we are taught language so we can relate words and concepts to others. When it comes to nothing in general (the lack of something) it already starts to degrade. We quantify a lack with a simple measurement -a glass half-empty. Or we quantify a lack with an idea of what was (or should have been) there -if jane has three apples and john takes away two.

We are instructed from infancy in this simplistic addition & subtraction. Higher mathematics is not needed in the average person’s daily grind and thus falls into disuse as one progresses through real life. In my case, I had created my own style of math long before I learned to count (thus it was inherently non-numerical) so I was predisposed against the stale indoctrinations of the ignorant masses. I already had a system that worked, however, I was happy to incorporate this numerical math into my life because it was beneficial for communicating quantities of things.

This is how it worked when I was in school... you are shown a group of things and then you assign numbers to how many of them there are. If there are eight things in the picture you write an 8 on your worksheet. If there are four, you write 4. If there are forty billion things in the picture you use your advanced non-numerical math system that you made up all by yourself while you were still a baby and you translate your outcome to a recognizable numerical equivalent so you can share it with your teacher. Oh, that’s right, they wouldn’t bother with numbers too big to count or too small to count. Incidentally, those were the only things I was interested in.

You mention that others have noted you doing “...nothing at all!” and I would agree with you. Giving the impression of total non-essence is a great (some might say glorious) feat. But I want to make it very clear that while ‘giving an impression’ is something, nothing isn’t necessarily anything.

Obviously nothing CAN be and generally IS something. But that’s when used in that ever-present numerical sense -Jane has zero apples OR Jane has nothing. And that “nothing” is not the nothing of total lack of existence, for she still has her life. Like so many words (yes, the WORD nothing is also a thing) nothing has many meanings and uses.

So now we’ve transitioned back to words. Let us dispense with zero, because it never will be nothing in the fullest sense. Don’t get me wrong. I love ‘zero’. But it’s about as non-extant as ‘having nothing to do’. Zero is at best a placeholder and at worst it’s a lack (usually of apples or other fruit).

So lets get to the point of this diatribe, nothing.

The WORD nothing IS SOMETHING. In the vernacular it is used ad infinitum in this finite sense. To fully understand nothing, we need to see beyond the boring concept of an ever-expanding infinity (yawn). We need to see an infinity that never had to start because “it” either already never wasn’t OR wasn’t ever never.

Colloquially it would be appropriate to speak of ‘the big nothing’ as never having existed. And we have no problem with this elementary phrasing. In fact our ever-unchanging web site uses many such literary tricks to get people started thinking about nothing.

Every-so-often we like to break out the ultimate truth about nothing and let people in on what exactly ‘the big nothing’ isn’t even not.

We have always held that nothing (the big nothing, real nothing) has no state, but is not lacking a state. A lack would make nothing something. Nothing is better than that, so we explain further. Nothing is so non-extant but so non-lacking that ‘it’ can’t EVEN not exist. Nothing has no capacity, nothing has no lack, nothing has no ability to have or not have anything. Yet, we have nothing and we are so proud of ‘it’ that we want to share nothing with everyone (for $5).

So now I hope you see clearly that when you were tricked by nothing, you were tricked into enlightenment... or whatever.

Xymyl (KON)

Top level communication: Nothing Creative

On Dec 31, 2007, at 2:26 AM, BASHA ONE wrote:

I was forwarded your site from a person who bought one of my NOTHING graffiti art canvases. I like your site and I am especially glad to see nothing. I love nothing and have been painting nothing for a while now. Check me at ebay under "BASHA ART"

Thanks,
BASHA>>>>>>>>

To which I replied:

BASHA,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding nothing interesting. I must mirror your sentiments about nothing and add that I enjoy nothing more than you do. I know this may come as a shock to someone who has painted nothing for so many years, but I have literally only made 3 paintings in the last 8 years. Absolutely all of the remaining time was dedicated to painting nothing. Once you develop that type of will power and strength of vision, you too will understand what it is to paint nothing interesting, nothing unique, nothing original or even nothing important every time you don't paint. With just a little more (or less) effort maybe even while you are painting you'll draw a blank, then perhaps a vortex, then maybe a black hole...

If you thought I was going somewhere with all this you still have a lot to learn about nothing. I looked at your work, and well I must say it seemed a bit agnomenistic (yes, it's a made up word, but you know what I mean) I could tell you really cared about nothing, and by nothing I mean not just the word nothing, but the real meaning of that word as well.

Perhaps we will collaborate one day by not doing anything to all the dead space in all the galleries in the world. It will be the largest installation ever constructed, what will be even more amazing is that it will require no effort. Are you with me? I'm on board, If you say yes then we've already done it. Of course, even if you don't say yes, we've pretty much already done it.

Here's to nothing collaborative!

--Xymyl (KON)

Fanmail: Hypocrisy expert?

On May 24, 2007, at 4:23 PM, Aryeh Lewis wrote:

I've been reading your blog for quite some time now, ever since you called me a maniac for laughing manically (naturally... because that kind of caused me to laugh manically once again).

Anyways, I just would like to let you know that I have, as of today, come to the final conclusion that your entire company ought to be sued for the biggest load of hypocrisy I've ever seen!!!

I mean... you're not actually an expert in nothing! You're an expert in making people laugh hysterically, and double antangeras, and heck! You could even run for president with your languistic skills! You're not a nothing expert at ALL! You're in fact, an expert on so many somethings that I must say... you really deserve to be put in prison for stealing all that money from all those fools who believed you to actually know nothing!

That said, I think I'ld like to order nothing and a book about "it." :)

To which I replied:

Thank you for your kind words and your insults.

Yes, it would appear that I am no expert on nothing because it often appears that I do indeed know everything. I want to point out that I do not know everything. I have a good grasp of many general concepts and I am awesome. But this doesn't make me an expert on everything, just awesome, that's all.

Just because I happen to know something and be awesome doesn't preclude my ability to know nothing. In fact, nothing is actually enhanced by my knowledge and awesomeness, because how could "it" be?

I hope that this clears up the confusion you had regarding my non-expert status. But I hope that the restoration of my credibility in your eyes does not dissuade you from buying nothing from me.

Thanks again.
--Xymyl (KON)

Q&A Conversation, What do you do?

There is a conversation that I have all too often. There is some variation but there is one central element. Can you guess what it is? Anyway, the following conversation is a "mashup" if you will, of various similar conversations along that theme:

“What do you do?” I sell nothing on the Internet. “Oh, like Seinfeld, a show about nothing!” No, actually it isn’t anything like that. A show that was actually about nothing wouldn’t be likely to get much airtime, and also, wouldn’t need airtime. But I have no immediate plans on doing a show about nothing, perhaps an infomercial. “Still sounds like Seinfeld to me.” First of all, the show itself wasn’t about nothing, the show very much like it within the show (Jerry) was said to be about nothing. And, just because they used the word nothing to describe the lack of importance of the events, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t about something! “Where did you get the idea from?” Nothing. “Yes, but who gave you the idea?” No one! “Well, I don’t know.” You don’t have to know. “Well, I’m not sure.” What is there to be sure or unsure about? “Well, how did you come up with it?” Nothing, or the idea of selling nothing? “Nothing!” I didn’t come up with nothing, but I believe myself to be the first to fully understand “it”. As for selling nothing, I am also the first to come up with that idea. Others have claimed to sell nothing at times but, as I mentioned before, just because you used the word “nothing” to describe something, does not make that something nothing. Even a con man who exchanges money for nothing usually uses some sort of prop, or perhaps sells a dream or even his own personality. He’s not just selling nothing. I “literally” sell nothing. What’s more, I am the first by a long shot to sell nothing on the Internet. I acquired the domain nothing.net in 1995 and have had my educational site there ever since. What’s even more, to show my dedication to nothing I’ve left it (the web site) virtually unchanged ever since, with only minor edits and additions. In fact there are broken links that have been there since its creation.

Now that is beautiful.