On Naming Nothingness

I like the idea of giving names to absences. My current favourite is 'airplane mode on', which turns almost everything off. I like that we have to ask for 'room' at StarBucks if we want less coffee in our cup, as if the absence of coffee were a commodity that StarBucks prided itself on being able to deliver. Wittgenstein remarked on how odd it would be (and yet how consistent with normal usage) if we went into a room to see if Mr. Nobody was there.

When we turn off the lights we should say we are turning on the darkness. When we end a relationship, we should say we are enabling solitude. When we die, let it be said that we have just switched on our nothingness.

[I plagiarized this blog post from my own FaceBook post, December 12, 2013]