Kicking It about nothing

Elizabeth Youngman-Westphal

Special to The Village News

I’m up against my deadline and not one idea comes to mind to chat about this week. Nothing. Absolutely nothing comes to mind. So, like Seinfeld, let’s talk about nothing, or would it be nothingness?

Today’ s column is about that. Nothing. How does one even begin to explore nothing one wonders?

Well, let’s begin by breaking it down to no thing. Oh, my goodness. Here I am swirling in a vortex of nothingness without a way to exhume my thoughts in order to create something.

Wow, that’s heavy. Or may be not. It’s probably nothing to worry about.

Still, fretting comes with the territory. How can one be expected to discuss nothing when clearly something is called for?

Maybe it’s easier to break it down. First, there is “no” which in this case might be construed as a prefix. No is a difficult word to clarify. It being the polar opposite of yes, not simply interpreted as 'stop going onward,' but to reexamine the meaning: not gonna happen.

Then there is thing. Is it a noun or a suffix of no? When used as the suffix of no, it would be nothing.

Gads, I am back where I started.

Even having just recently returned from a 15-day cruise over the Pacific to Hawaii, that would seem to be something to write about, yet, nothing appeared to be in or under the water. Not one living anything surfaced as far as the eye could see. Just lots and lots of nothing.

While the cruise ship powered over the top of the ocean all the way to Hilo, is it not a wonder that nothing can be seen in or above the water except the horizon?

Peggy Lee sang “Is that all there is?” which poses the answer, “yes, that’s it.” From the deck, there appears to be nothing on the underside of all that water.

Something would be nothing’s antonym I suppose. Even so, what some thing is boggles the mind. Is it a compilation of lots of nothings or is it something else? Which means it might just really be more of nothing?

With so much to be said about a lot of nothing, the question remains, what to write about?

If something doesn’t come to mind soon, guess the only course of action is to scribble something about nothing. Nada.

Elizabeth Youngman-Westphal can be reached at [email protected].