Everything And Nothing

Nothingness of Space Could Illuminate the Theory of Everything

Seems like I was on to something.

Empty space is not really empty because nothing contains something.

So it is everything and nothing.

Or everything is nothing. Or nothing is everything.

Just depending on how you look at it, I suppose.

Or, as John Baez says, “The vacuum is one of the places where our knowledge fizzles out and we’re left with all sorts of crazy-sounding ideas.”

My kind of space...

Everything and Nothing Too

I have been very, very bad on iTunes this week. So I took a break from being bad to check out Elvis Costello's playlist. One of the songs he recommended was Amy Allison's "Her Hair Was Red," which didn't do much for me, but I had to spend 30 minutes exploring her other music, of course. And I discovered she has an album called Everything and Nothing Too that has a song called "Everything and Nothing Too" - which I loved, of course.

I couldn't find the lyrics online, so here you go...my contribution (just because Amy and I must be kindred spirits of some sort):

Everything and Nothing Too
By Amy Allison

I just don't know what to do with my time
Ever since we broke up, I swear I'll lose my mind
I thought your love was true
I thought I would always be with you, but I was wrong
And now I feel I can't go on

You gave me everything and nothing too.
All my friends say I'm a fool for you.
I don't know if that's true.
All I know is you gave me
everything and nothing too.

everything and nothing too
everything and nothing too

I see the rainbow like teardrops to the ground.
If this goes on any longer, I think I'm gonna drown.
I walk the streets at night
I stand alone in the morning light
It's just not fair
I'm not going anywhere

You gave me everything and nothing too
All those days and nights I wasted on you
Oh how I cried and cried
The day that our love died.
Everything and nothing too.

everything and nothing too
everything and nothing too

You gave me everything and nothing too
All those days and nights I wasted on you
Oh how I cried and cried
The day that our love died
Everything and nothing too

everything and nothing too
everything and nothing too

everything and nothing too
that's what I meant to you
everything and nothing too
that's what I meant to you

Did I Miss Anything?

I couldn't resist adding this to my Everything and Nothing category after reading it on Lisa's The Truth Hurts. Read it and you'll see why.

Photo via Flickr/Guy Veale

Did I Miss Anything?
By Tom Wayman

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 percent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 percent

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose

Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring the good news to all people
on earth.

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human experience
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
gathered

but it was one place

And you weren’t here

[ Via Poetry 180. Reprinted for educational and personal use only. Copyright Tom Wayman, 1993. ]

Moon Tiger

An excerpt from Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively:

A history of the world, yes. And in the process, my own. The life and times of Claudia H. The bit of the twentieth century to which I've been shackled, willy-nilly, like it or not. Let me contemplate myself within my context: everything and nothing. The history of the world as selected by Claudia: fact and fiction, myth and evidence, images and documents.

When I read it, it was like a summation of my blog, in print - and fiction. ;)

Everything and Nothing: The Movie

OK, OK. Everything and Nothing: The Documentary.

From IMDb.com:

Everything and Nothing creates an intimate dialogue that weaves back and forth between representations of a figure (of resistance) and subject. The film features interviews with Soha Bechara, an ex-Lebanese National Resistance fighter. She is interviewed in her Paris dorm room after release from captivity in the El-Khiam torture and interrogation center in South Lebanon where she had been detained for 10 years, 6 of which she spent in isolation.

Joe Hand's Everything and Nothing

From the Catholic Music Network Web site:

“Everything and Nothing” is the result of 4 long years of writing and recording, says Joe Hand. “It is without question the best recording I have ever done, with the best songs I've ever written. Though it is a little more serious in subject matter than my older work, it's an accurate reflection of where I've been over the past 4 years, and where I'm at now. “

”Each song has a little blurb about it before the lyrics on the liner notes. But I'd like to say something here about the title track, ‘Everything and Nothing’. September 11th, 2001 still haunts me. I did not know anyone who died that day, but it didn't matter. I had nightmares for weeks afterwards.”

“In our time of greatest sorrow, many of our religious leaders did little to comfort us. Some even said we deserved the destruction of that day and worse, because of our sins. Well, that's wrong (If you need any proof, reread the story of Job). Last I checked, Jesus paid back our sins with the of His only Son, Jesus. One sacrifice, for the sins of the whole world.”

“Friends who were at ground zero spoke about how little was left of the human remains. Everything was reduced to a giant pile of dust. So here were my questions to the Lord. ‘If we are dust, then how could you love us so much? How can you know us before you formed us in our mother's womb, yet allow us to be reduced to dust in an instant? How can our hairs be counted while thousands fall in minutes?”

“The answer was another great riddle from the Lord. We mean everything to Him. He loves us so much that He sent his only Son Jesus to die a horrible on the cross for our sins and the sins of the whole world. Yet in our human state, we are also nothing more than common elements: dust somehow endowed with a very fragile existence. I will be meditating on that mystery for the rest of my life. To Him, we are at the same time ‘Everything and Nothing’."

“After writing the song, my nightmares ceased. May that song and all the songs on my cd bring you peace, comfort, healing, and more importantly bring you closer to the Lord Jesus.”

Everything and Nothing in One Breath

Consciousness is not an object, so you cannot say it is something. And yet it is not nothing. Nothing is void; it has no attributes, no qualities. Consciousness is empty of any thing, and yet there is something endlessly compelling in that emptiness. When you contemplate consciousness, you discover a mysterious sense of knowing that is both knowing nothing and knowing everything at once. Whatever you are becoming cognizant of, its nature seems to be everything—fullness, completeness. The emptiness is full. That's why the emptiness is compelling, because it is full of the knowing of some mysterious everything that is not a thing. It's everything; it's nothing—you can go on forever: everything, nothing, nothing, everything, always meaning the same thing. If you could say everything and nothing in one breath, perhaps you could capture the paradoxical nature of consciousness.

~ Andrew Cohen

Perfection has its price

"The artists who seek perfection in everything
     are those who can attain it in nothing."
~ Eugene Delacroix

Everything and Nothing Art

Richie Harenberg shows his art at www.everythingandnothing.org. He lives in Brevard, NC.

Check out his artwork.

He, of course, paints everything...and nothing.

Just like me. ;)

Everything and Nothing

When I started this blog, I thought long and hard about the name and thought Everything and Nothing was quite unique and truly symbolized what I wanted the blog to become. Since then, I've seen the phrase everywhere (not quite as original as I thought)...so I'm collecting what I find in this new category.

David Sylvian's Everything and Nothing is a career retrospective.

I have found it interesting that song and album titles make great blog titles or entry titles. Maybe there's something similar to a great album and a great blog. (I know...I'm dating myself. Kids today don't know great albums in this age of the single.)

Other great Sylvian album titles that would make great blog names, in case you haven't started your own yet...

• Secrets of the Beehive
• World Citizen
• Dead Bees on a Cake
• Laughing Stock (funny stock photography, maybe?)
• Plight and Premonition
• I Surrender
• An Index of Possibilities