“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.” - Oscar Wilde
While this is the eleventh Passover Seder preamble in our household, tonight’s preamble is a first.
Over the past ten weeks I have written over 350 pages for a three-night lecture series. Scribed my father’s eulogy, the eulogy for our dear “Blue Rose Shepherd” Barbara, and an additional two chapters of a children’s story that I began in 1993.
I will now pause, accept and welcome all the “you poor baby(s)” from all of you gathered here who actually listen to my “poor me’s” …
Simply and directly, my creative brain is fried.
I told my wife and daughter that I did not want, nor could I write anything this year. I asked them for some novel ideas. My daughter's admonishing response was, “Write about anything except death and sickness. You always write about sickness or death.”
I wondered if my preambles were as morose as she perceived them to be. Being the quintessential researcher, I examined the previous ten preambles for any trending behavior. The data clearly indicates that only three, had illness and death tonalities.
My daughter could argue, “See, that’s a full one-third of them!”
So, I asked her if, this year, she wanted to write it with her boyfriend. Due to her enormous school workload, this could not happen. However, it would have been interesting, albeit unfair, to ask her boyfriend to write one solo.
So, I decided to write about NOTHING!
This idea came to me at 4:00AM this morning as my wife got out of bed to let the dogs out and
attempted to be quiet. Not quiet enough...
But, I did nothing.
While it was quite warm in the bedroom, when my wife came back to bed, as always, she had cold feet … and a cold butt…
I said nothing.
Thinking about “nothing” at 4:00AM and concurrently trying to go back to sleep is not as easy as you think.
I then began to think about what I did that day. Worked; Motorcycle ride to Cold Springs for lunch with my wife and friends; more Passover food preparation; room re-arrangement accompanied by ’my’ annual PMS (Passover Madness Syndrome).
NOTHING special.
After some time, nothing else came to mind and I fell back to sleep.
The alarm clock went off at 6:00AM and my early morning chores began:
1. Make coffee
2. Turn on computer systems
3. Change water on bird-stands
4. Open chicken coop
5. Tend to the rabbit “Sarge”
6. Put birds on stand
7. CAREFULLY wake my wife
8. Make and serve her coffee (milk and two sugars), tell her I love her and re-affirm its eternity.
My daily early ritual—
NOTHING remarkable.
When my daughter was in high school, “Nothing” was the holistic description of her life and activities when
I inquired about them.
Dad...“What’s up, Erin?”
Daughter...“Nothing”
“Nothing” is the whispered secret between people when you ask, “What did you just say?”.
“Nothing” is the good news I got when I returned from business travels and asked, “Anything happen while I was gone?”
I began to think about what others might say when they think about “nothing”.
In Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “Much Ado About Nothing”, the two lovers Benedict and Beatrice say much about nothing…
BENEDICK
“I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?”
BEATRICE
“As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing…”
There are two entire websites dedicated to “nothing”, www.nothing.com & www.nothing.net. The former writes, “Nothing is an awe-inspiring yet essentially undigested concept, highly esteemed by writers of an existentialist tendency, but most others regard it with anxiety, nausea, or panic.”
Imagine, “Nothing” is that important.
Some final thoughts about “nothing”...
I get enormously bored and frustrated doing it!
“Nothing” is what I would rather be doing… than being together with friends and family who I love.
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