probing the philosophy of nothingness in daily life
How consciousness works, how it lives, dies, and transforms has been a preoccupation of mine since I was a girl grabbing Tibetan Book of the Dead and I Am That off the bookshelf. I’d do thought experiments for hours trying to trace the moment when consciousness would install itself into matter. Now, as I practice Buddhism, I’m finding these spiritual inquiries happen automatically. Practice can help you see behind the veil, if you want this. Honestly, I’m not sure I want anything but a donut right now. My trips to this ‘space’ have been intense, but I think there are lighter ways to access them too. That’s what these stories attempt to be: lightness in truth. You are something, but you come from nothing.
Story One: First Concert
My first live concert was seeing Cat Stevens when I was 7 years old. My mom had been playing his Greatest Hits album non-stop, and we loved dancing around the kitchen to “Peace Train.” It was mid 1970s, and my newly divorced mom wanted my brother and me to wake up to good music, while she made scrambled eggs and plucked her eyebrows at the breakfast table.
“Why was a concert venue named after nothing?”
I’d wink and ask that question every time the venue was mentioned. I probed to see if anyone else saw things the way I did. I found the name hilarious, and as a marketing person, it perplexed if it was meant to be brilliant, or if the “emptiness” was completely unrealized by most. To be clear, I realize the name was about sponsorship money and naming rights, but it was so funny to me because my brain could only “see” two things in the name Dunkin Donuts Center: one was a hole and the other was the absence of a munchkin.
Story Two: Superpowers
About a year ago, someone I respect said to me, “your superpower is you see what is missing.” I spent a bit of time letting the question occupy my mind. Is it true? What kind of person could do that — see what is missing? What would happen if I could?
All I can say is I also believed it was a “good” to have a super power, so I owned the title for a while, as well as rushing to fill the gaps in our shared work project. After a good amount of overwork, I realized, it was me that was missing: my sense of self preservation and purpose had been discarded in service of something not really for me.
By that point, a deeper inquiry really had me too: if I am missing, then who is asking the question?
I’m not a big one on opening comments on websites, because of the ridiculous amount of spam that ensues, so I’ll leave you only with a question: Have you ever occupied the space from which “you” emerged? Did you re-choose your life? Which parts? What would happen if you re-chose ALL of it?
