For those of you responding "WTF?" to the subject line, you obviously have never been exposed to the pure intellectual and philosophical pleasure known as "Seinfeld".  I am, by no means, the biggest Jerry S. fan in the world, but I do remember one thing about the show: it was about nothing.

That's right. Nothing. In honor of this groundbreaking concept, I will attempt to write an entire blog entry about...you guessed it...nothing.

Over the past couple of weeks or so, I've been checking out DVDs of one of my all-time favorite series, Cosmos by Carl Sagan. You know, the guy who used to talk about "billions and billions" of stars.  Okay, he never really said those exact words on the show (just like Captain Kirk never really said "Beam me up, Scotty!" and Sherlock Holmes never said the phrase, "Elementary, my dear Watson").

My point being....with all those stars, all that organic matter and planets and asteroids floating out there, they're all surrounded by...what?  That's right, kiddie-winkies: nothing.  That's what space is....lots and lots of nothing surrounding lots and lots of somethings.  How's that for a solid scientific definition, huh?

Another point the late Dr. Sagan made concerned matter, the stuff we're all made up of. What is matter made up of? Atoms. Atoms are made up of what?  A center, or nucleus, consisting of protons and neutrons surrounded by orbiting electrons.  And what surrounds this collection of particles (I'm not even gonna worry about the sub-atomic stuff).  Drum roll, please...nothing. Matter is composed mostly of...empty space.

So let me take this to another level.  With everything we physically know, everything we can touch, smell, see, taste, hear, etc. consisting of mostly nothing, is it really any surprise that we carbon-based bipeds (human beings, that is) can get all worked up about ideas, events, happenings and so on that, in the final analysis, turn out to be nothing while completely glossing over the events, happenings and so on that are actually something?

Perhaps that "magnificent bastard" was truly on to something, with a show about nothing, after all.

Peace,

m.b.a.

Tags: nothing, science, seinfeld, society
Current Location: nowhere in particular
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: a tree falling in the forest