I’ve got nothing to say today, but if there’s one thing I hate, it’s bloggers who write posts announcing that they have nothing to say, and then invite comments on the nothingness.
Of course, if the goal is to solicit what M. Simon called “typical dim witted semi-on-topic blog comments,” (and Donna, that does not mean you!) then maybe this is the perfect post to let the typical dim-witted comments flow.
In my defense, I should point out that I was on out-of-town business for the entire day yesterday and then I had another event in the evening, and then this morning I had to follow up on the out of town business. That means I lost my morning flow two days in a row, and I’m a regular person.
Geez. I hate the look of that last sentence. Looks like a description of urinary problems. But I guess it’s an improvement on nothing. And nothing is what this post is supposed to be about. So right there I am off topic, unable to stick to nothing, and my wits are getting dimmer.
Which means I am at least living up to the title of the post.
Donna Barber, BTW, has an interesting post about ophidiophobia — a fear I know exists but do not share. Quite the opposite; although I have discussed ophidiophobia as a quasi-political analogy.
Fear of sex is like fear of snakes; you either have it or you don’t. While those who are horrified by prostitution are not necessarily afraid of prostitutes in the normal sense of the word “fear,” the strong moral disapproval involved usually stems not from disagreement, but a feeling. In the case of prostitute haters (or disapprovers) and prostitute lovers (or approvers), there is a mutual inability to feel the disgust (or approval) that the other side feels.
In many ways, it is like snake haters versus snake lovers. Neither can explain their hatred or their love, and even if they can verbalize it, the feelings are not shared.
What would fear of nothing be called?
No, I don’t mean fearing nothing, I mean fearing nothing!
Fear of that vast infinite nothingness.
A person who fears nothing has a lot to fear. (I guess I better stop there or I’ll be waaaaay off topic, not just semi-on!)
MORE: Speaking of nothing in particular, in 1936 Salvador Dalí painted The Chemist of Ampurdan in Search of Absolutely Nothing. Whether he found what he was searching for, I do not know.
Nothing will come of this.
MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that nothing might be everything, because “Every black hole may hold a hidden universe.”
And that’s Nothing to get upset about!
Comments
6 responses to “A typical dim witted semi-on-topic post about nothing”
Oh… a nullophobe?
“Nihilophobia – fear of nothingness, as described by the Doctor in the Star Trek: Voyager episode Night. Voyager’s morale officer and chef Neelix suffers from this condition, having panic attacks while the ship was traversing a dark expanse of space known as the Void. It is also the title of a 2008 album by Neuronium.”
OTOH, Wikipedia files this under “Jocular and fictional phobias” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_phobias
Or, possibly, kenophobia.
Regularity generally does not refer to the urinary tract, although irregularity there could be painful more often.
As for snakes, my fear has nothing to do with morality. At least I don’t think it does. I don’t hate snakes, I am simply irrationally afraid of them even when I know a particular snake will not (can not) hurt me.
I envy people who aren’t afraid of snakes. I am ashamed of the reaction I have. There’s little worse than being a blithering idiot and knowing you are one… and completely helpless to stop the blithering.
But why in the world would I try to turn my fear into a moral statement that snakes are bad and therefore people who do not fear snakes are also bad? Good grief! I depend on you who do not fear snakes to protect me! You, out of kindness to me (while laughing… yeah, you got that against you sometimes) will remove the snake from my presence and I, in return, will love you endlessly without question.
Nothing has never honored me so much.
A short riff on this post and something Althouse wrote at:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2010/07/hair-of-body.html
Fear of nothing is the biggest fear known to man.