The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
~ Albert Einstein
I knew a man once who was obsessed with ZERO. You name it, he was all over the zero aspect of it. From numerology to astrology to tax returns, he was very interested in the number zero. Yet, it was clearly more about the idea, the depth of zero that fried his shrimp.
Negative space, for example. The white line that is about to follow this line full of black typed words with, well, with incredibly meaningful ideas, right…? Yet, if you breathe into my intention, my personality, spirit, psychology, etc. there is a whole world about me that you may have access to beyond the words I choose to share. There is oftentimes so much value in grasping the “meta-communication” that is being imparted in the negative space between our words.
The paradox of the Tarot’s arguably most mysterious character, the Fool, is the lucky recipient of a Zero at the top of its card. The notion being that the Fool has no value at all, or perhaps the wise fool has more value in not being connected to a specific value. There is no beginning or end to its value. Even still, it is the Fool and her journey that embarks on the entire meaning of the Tarot’s Major Arcana and perhaps, the journey to understand the meaning of life.
Martin Buber ( 20th century German philosopher ) taught about the power of the I-Thou relationship. The space between two unique, empowered and conscious beings, he suggested, is exactly the most magical, creative space that exists in the universe. In fact, God/Creation/Invention/Healing exists in that “zero” space between two people who mutually encounter one another without expectation or projection. As Neo says, “Whoa.”
In the beginning, before there was the word and all that, there was NOTHING. ZERO. NADA.
“Bereishit bara elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz veha’aretz haiyta tohu va vohu ve’choshech al p’ney tehom” – which means – “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”
Tohu va’vohu. Unformed and Void. Nothingness was the earth. Yet, from that nothingness emerges everything! That’s a pretty powerful pile of zero.
Beautiful, isn’t it?
aretz, Auto, beginning, Bible, Buber, desolation, Draft, Einstein, german philosopher, in the beginning, major arcana, martin buber, negative, Nothing, Power, Tarot, tohu, tohu vavohu, void, What is beauty?, wise fool, zero space
Jeffrey Sumber is changing the world, one relationship at a time. For over two decades, Jeffrey has worked to understand the human experience from as many angles as possible. As a successful psychotherapist, marriage counselor, and life coach, Jeffrey has worked with thousands of clients who strive to live their best lives.
The man who appreciated and loved Zero was proceeding from a false premise. Zero is not a number. It is a place holder to accent real numbers. Zero has no mean until it is place next to a 1 on your right to make it 10 or to diminish it to less than 1 by making it .01 and even then, the period needs to be added because zero by itself on the left with out the point makes no sense.
Even when one describes nothing…it is describing something that we call nothing. We would like to believe in the power of negative energy but we are at a loss for words to describe it. Because by label it, we give something that should have no value…value.
In regards to the creation of the universe. I like to think of that as one of those Rules that God has that we just don’t understand yet. I am hesitant to label such a thing because, quite frankly, that would be belittling God. This is what I think Man is very arrogant about…having the need to explain things away so that we can compare ourselves to God. When in reality what we really should be doing is modifying our thinking and accepting the fact that we don’t know everything. This is a very sincere form of Humility. And I think God likes that in us.
Let me practice a little arrogance here. Much of the absurd human condition is about the hopeless (is that cynical, godless, etc?) attempt to assign value to words and things even though we may know it is a hopeless venture. But we liked to do it anyway-soothing, I guess. As Beckett reasoned, it does help to pass the time. However, to persist in this possibly hopeless but possibly noble activity is, curious. Why doesn’t someone spend 40 years trying to figure out why we do this? Also, if you subtract all of the words, do you have zero? No, you still have a human being, whatever that means. A little more arrogance here if you can bear with me: we created the afterlife and now we need it but can’t have it. By the way, the radical Muslims hate this idea and that’s why they want to eradicate us -kill the messenger so to speak. Am I an atheist? I sincerely hope that I am wrong (ah ha, my own words -useless as they are- betray that I’m not a complete atheist and so there must still be hope for me!). I love the idea of zero as it has so much charged meaning or lack thereof and without its existence or lack thereof I wouldn’t have felt the compulsion or rather necessity or maybe the inclination or possibly the urge (aren’t urge and inclination the same, well maybe but …ad infinitum) and speaking of infinity did you ever wonder why a straight line…
I think that God or god-which do you prefer?-doesn’t like questions from us. Sorry God or god, that’s how it is. Not to sound totally lacking in humility or anything but, god or God, I think that you -and I don’t want to tell you what to do-I mean I’m just like a little gnat or an ant or even less than that, yes, that’s it, a zero, but I think you should lighten up a little bit, you know, go with the flow. Yes, filling up the time on a Sunday morning …
I hear you, Gary. I don’t think it’s arrogance, I think it is an attempt like most of us to make sense of things that are not easy to understand or KNOW. One of the reasons I love the “Information Age” and the Internet is that ideas spread like wildfire when they hit us in a particular way and then, other ideas, fall to the ground, shrivel up and die- of course who knows where dead ideas go after they lived….
All the best and please stay in touch!
Jeffrey