Being Null

Something feels like a blank page today.  Maybe it’s getting back to work after a sunny weekend and not immediately feeling the need to jump back into the quagmire.  Possibly that’s because I reached a certain closure last Friday on a bit of code and that let me relax just a little bit for the last two days.  Today, there’s an air of serenity layered over the usual frantic pace.  Sure, the entire building is heads down and racing to make the Wednesday milestone, and there are many things I could be doing at this very moment.  But that’s just it.  There are many directions to go and I have not yet made up my mind.  It’s a little like being uncertain, but not really.  It’s more like being null.

 

This might be surprising to anyone and everyone that ever encountered nullness in life, or thought they did, or thought they knew someone that had. You might have thought null was a depressing lack of meaning or the longing pain of abandonment or loss.  The sound of the word echoing across the chasms of your cranium might have lead you to believe that null is somewhat like the numbness left after a tailspin descent into black intoxication.  But it is not.  It is entirely the opposite.

 

Null is the absence of actuality, the state before you make up your mind, the moment before you peek inside the box to see if the cat is still alive.  When you are null you are free; free to choose and free to be.  The future is laid bare with all its paths before you stretching out toward the horizon emblazoned with the orange and gold of sunrise.

 

I try to reach a state of null as quickly and as often as I can.  Null is completion, when you cross off all the items from your list and are left with the satisfaction of a job well done.  It’s like standing on a mountain top looking down over all that you’ve ever done and seen and known.

 

Everything and nothing, null is Zen.

 

Matt

Comments

• Anonymous
  April 19, 2004
  wow, that is so deep!
• Anonymous
  April 19, 2004
  How can null be the absence of actuality? Isn't null a state? And isn't state actual? Null and non-null: these are two states that are both identical and opposite. Identical in that they are two states describing "something". Opposite in that their descriptions have opposing semantics. To be null is to be dualistic because it is possible to be non-null. Once you are both null and non-null, becoming non-dualistic, then you have Zen. But words just get in the way. Zen just is.
• Anonymous
  April 19, 2004
  A encoding of 'null' may be a state, but NULL is not a state, it is the absense of state.
• Anonymous
  April 19, 2004
  Being a VB programmer, when I enter into a null state I promptly thow an error and crash :)
• Anonymous
  April 19, 2004
  I'm undecided on the whole thing :-)
• Anonymous
  April 25, 2004
  In my case, it's incresingly difficult for me to reach the null state. My mind is always in the middle of something, and I just can't back off and see myself in perspective, either relating to upcoming work, thoughts or feeling.