A Handful of Nothing

Luke: Anybody here? Hey, Old Man. You home tonight? Can You spare a minute. It’s about time we had a little talk. I know I’m a pretty evil fellow… killed people in the war and got drunk… and chewed up municipal property and the like. I know I got no call to ask for much… but even so, You’ve got to admit You ain’t dealt me no cards in a long time. It’s beginning to look like You got things fixed so I can’t never win out. Inside, outside, all of them… rules and regulations and bosses. You made me like I am. Now just where am I supposed to fit in? Old Man, I gotta tell You. I started out pretty strong and fast. But it’s beginning to get to me. When does it end? What do You got in mind for me? What do I do now? Right. All right. [Gets on knees, closes eyes and begins to pray] On my knees, asking. [pause] Yeah, that’s what I thought. I guess I’m pretty tough to deal with, huh? A hard case. Yeah. I guess I gotta find my own way.

Dragline: Luke?

Luke: [Shakes head and smiles] Is that Your answer, Old Man? I guess You’re a hard case, too.

The Zero of Nothing’s Beauty

We start, then, with nothing, pure zero.
But this is not the nothing of negation.
For not means other than, and other
is merely a synonym of the ordinal numeral second.

As such it implies a first;
while the present pure zero
is prior to every first. The nothing
of negation is the nothing of death,
which comes second to, or after,
everything.

But this pure zero is the nothing
of not having been born.
There is no individual thing,
no compulsion, outward nor inward,
no law. It is the germinal nothing,
in which the whole universe is involved
or foreshadowed. As such, it is absolutely
undefined and unlimited possibility — boundless possibility.

There is no compulsion and no law.
It is boundless freedom.

Charles S. Peirce, “Logic of Events” (1898)