Why Nothing is Interesting
Uploaded by cruelanais on Aug 24, 2005
WHY NOTHING IS INTERESTING?
When one contemplates how the "show about nothing" could be so comical one starts to wonder just how nothing can provide such an interesting topic for the comedies of life. In life something is what people think about. People worry about details or they worry about the big picture. The little nothings that trouble people only for a single moment of a single day are quickly forgotten. Rather its a place to hide at work or a bad day with a coworker little nothings are soon forgotten. Seinfeld takes those little nothings and combines them to create something which is truly something.
From a logical perspective nothing is a mathematical impossibility. You never truly have 0 percent of anything, as you always have a small fraction of all other things by the inherant nature of matter and the atom. Nothingness is as close to a thing realized in practice as is infinity. From this vantage point to have "nothing" created in such a way as to allow for the creation of bountiful and infinite storylines and laughter seems logical. If "nothing" is close to everything, then why call it just something when nothing is nearly as likely to exist as infinity? A show about something seems rather lame as all shows claim to be about something. So a show about nothing was born. The writers of Seinfeld without doubt understood the inherant similarities between nothing and infinity. From nothingness came everything if you believe in the big bang theory. If you believe in creationism then god created everything from nothing. Again nothing seems to lie at the heart of all great creations.
In life its not about how much substance one has. Rather its about how much one does with the knowledge of one's own nothingness that one soon acquires. In Seinfeld, George wrestles with the knowledge of his limitations as a short, bald, fat man, who can't attract the right girl. Kramer struggles with the knowledge that he has not fully realized one well crafted scheme in his life. Elaine worries with the fact that she can not hold onto a good boyfriend for long, nor a good job. Jerry ponders the lives of his nothing friends as well as his own Lex Luthurs which seem to always thwart his plans to find his own Lois Lane and live the life of Superman.
The fabulous four...