I spend so much energy searching for something more in life that I found it refreshing to find someone focusing on the power of nothing. Journalist Joan Konner, conceived and edited a wonderful collection of “thoughts on naught.” Her book, You Don’t Have to Be Buddhist to Know Nothing made me think about a lot. Here’s my interview with her:

Jennifer Haupt: What exactly is Nothing and how do I know when I’ve found it?

Joan Konner: The dictionary defines Nothing as something of no value. It also defines Nothing as a point of reckoning. We use the word, and the synonyms for Nothing⎯from Abyss to Zip, including Naught, Void and Zero—in both those senses. Nothing is both a negation of everything and a point of origin. For example, numbers would have no value without the existence of Zero, the point of reckoning. As in numbers, so, too, for everything that exists.

JH: What is the history of Nothing?

JK: In the long literary, mathematical, scientific and philosophical history of Nothing, there is evidence in the writings of many of the best minds of the times, dating back to the Greeks and beyond, that Nothing is a necessary presence in our lives. Through the deep, sometimes desperate and, as often, divine thoughts of these writers, we know that people have experienced and pondered the presence of Nothing. Some have feared Nothing, others have cultivated Nothing; still others have celebrated the joy of Nothing. Poets and playwrights; geniuses and jokers have been able to translate Nothing into words and, thereby, to establish for the rest of us a mirror of our own experience Nothing as a necessary presence in our lives.

JH: What do you have faith in? Nothing or something more?

JK: I know that Nothing exists, paradoxical though that sounds. To say that, I am saying that I believe in paradox, though in our Western mindset, that seems like an oxymoron and an absurdity. We live in a dualistic world—Good and Evil; Sickness and Health; Life and Death; material and spiritual. That is our Western dualistic tradition of thought. Logic and reason are the Western route to Truth, and obviously. The scientific method has provided us with provable knowledge that has served the world well in its understanding, application and manipulation of Nature. It has also served the world poorly as we see in global warming and terminal waste products that will far outlast the lives of the human animals that have created it.

In contrast, Eastern traditions of philosophy and religion believe in paradoxical logic, that a thing can be A and not A at the same time, in the same place. That is a different way of being in and seeing the world. That Eastern concept is represented by the symbol of the Tao, where black and white are necessarily bound together as One in a circle representing the whole.

I believe both are true—the Eastern and the Western ways of seeing the world. That is my personal belief, my Tao, that both visions reveal the same Truth. It leads me to say that Nothing and Everything are opposites that co-exist. There is a Prime Force, which some might call God—with his many characteristics: energy, intelligence, love; and God is Nothing or All. There is Nothing, and the One or All is a necessary component of it.
That is why I do not call myself an Atheist or an Agnostic. Belief in paradox is more than a belief. I experience paradox in the boomerang effect of everything. Even life and death.

>JH: In the intro to your book, you say that something is and is not at the same time. How does this manifest in daily life?

JK: I imagine, think, experience Nothing as an ever-present, instantaneous, evanescent
Presence in my everyday life, going in and out of existence at every moment. If it weren’t for Nothing, everything would be stuck in place, paralyzed. Nothing gives us the freedom to think, to move, to act, to create, or not.

I can’t think of a single thing, condition or event which does not manifest with its opposite, in our dualistic concept of the world. Our language and, therefore, our categories of thought, separate the opposing forces, as if they did not necessarily co-exist. We operate in an either/or construct. But I see the world as connected and interdependent, including opposites, which do not cancel each other but which, in fact, need each other in order to be. Again: Good and Evil; Sickness and Health; male and female; Sound and Silence; Motion and Stillness; matter and energy. Each individual is both living and dying at the same time. At least until we die. After that we do not know, as we did not know before-we-were-born. The afterlife and the pre-life may be imagined, as they have been, but they cannot be experienced in this life.

JH: Why are many people so afraid of Nothing? What is the kernel of truth about Nothing that we aren’t getting?

JK: It is almost impossible to conceive of Nothing. Nothing is a Stop sign to thought. That is why the concept of Nothing has such a long and tortured history. How can something that contradicts everything be established? Ultimately, Nothing had to be admitted because it is an essential element in everything that happens. Nothing is the element that makes the dynamic of time, movement and dimension possible.

When we ask people to recognize Nothing, to admit that Nothing exists, they think of the definition that says “something of no value,” rather than “the point of reckoning.” That moment of Nothing is a moment of freedom, a moment of choice, in which to create something different and new.

JH: Is trusting Nothing, believing that it’s OK to create a void and something will come along to fill it (as opposed to cramming more and more into our busy lives) a leap of faith?

JK: Science tells us that Nature abhors a vacuum and that Nature rushes in to fill it. In that sense, it is natural that we rush in to fill the vacuums that we sense or experience, even for a moment, but especially if the moments of emptiness in our lives pile up. I think we can trust Nature to rush in to fill it. However, if we accept the Void, tolerate the emptiness, and not distract ourselves so that we deny it, do not feel it, numb ourselves to the anxiety that emptiness creates, I believe, I trust, I have faith, and even proof, that we are making a space for the unconscious mind, call it the Universe, if you will, to come up with something, maybe something Other, something new—to be creative. If not, Nature, that is our own nature, will rush in fill it, as is the nature of Nature.

Joan Konner is Dean Emertita and Professor Emerita of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She is a long-time, award-winning documentary producer for both commercial and public television. She conceived and edited two collections of quotes: The Atheist’s Bible, published by ECCO/HarperCollins, which became a national bestseller; and You Don’t Have to be Buddhist to Know Nothing, which will be published by Prometheus Books in October.

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