NOTHING KNOWING SOMETHING

There are three phases of matter: gas, liquid, and solid.

There are three phases of creative work: nothing, knowing, and something.

The three phases of matter are well understood. However, we fail to properly understand the three phases of creative work and what they demand of us.

Start with SOMETHING. This one seems straightforward, but it's more complex than it first appears.

First, SOMETHING describes both a recognition that a fragment might be part of a larger thing and manifesting that SOMETHING into more and more complete versions of itself. SOMETHING does not mean finished. It may not have an endpoint at all (think of Charlie Kaufman's film Synecdoche, New York).

We also might assume that SOMETHING is the endpoint of the process. This is only sometimes the case. SOMETHING can emerge out of noodling, brainstorming, and sudden manifestation. From there we must learn to see SOMETHING in order to KNOW it.

This brings us to KNOWING, an act that sounds as if it happens in the head, but is far more trustworthy in the body. KNOWING is not a passive state, it is a manifestation, a shepherding, a guiding of non-form to form, or form to greater form. KNOWING is the state of transition in which we as humans are most active.

This central role of KNOWING might make it seem as if this is the key part of the process. In many ways it is. But possessing the ability to KNOW does not mean that one knows how to create. KNOWING requires a deeper recognition of NOTHING for what it really is.

This brings us to the trickiest of all: NOTHING. We assume NOTHING means non-existence. But that's not true. NOTHING describes the form and vacuum where energy could be but isn't. NOTHING does not mean it doesn't exist. NOTHING means yet to be KNOWN. Yet to be seen. Yet to be shepherded responsibly. NOTHING is pre-SOMETHING.

The ability to sense NOTHING is simultaneously one of the most sensitive and sturdiest characteristics to have. The yearning to sense and perceive while maintaining the discipline to fail and get better.

If we return to the three states of matter, we can see parallels. Gas, or NOTHING, is when things are hardest to perceive. Liquid, or KNOWING, is when matter is most malleable, changing form to fit its context. Solid, or SOMETHING, is when something has acquired enough definition to exist.

I find each phase terrifying and wonderful in its own way.

Refining KNOWING into SOMETHING is a patient, iterative part of the process that I take real relish in most of the time. The more time you spend refining SOMETHING, the more itself it becomes. (Which also means becoming less YOU, too.)

The act of KNOWING and playing with a shape, letting it slip through your fingers and slide around your head like mercury, is one of the deepest joys I know. But this feeling can be seductive. It's easy to trap yourself here through fear and perfectionism rather than see what's on the other side of the next state.

Of all the states it's NOTHING I love the most. NOTHING is the most frightening. An existential gut punch that asks: is there even anything else? What if we've used up whatever we had in us? What if the universe stops speaking to us through the patterns we've become accustomed to?

But there are few feelings better than that first hit of NOTHING. Only through the deepest vibrations of our body, of chills along our spine, of increased energy and speed in our speech, do we first feel the hints of the beautiful form that is NOTHING. Like a fish nibbling at your line. It's a patient process. It can't be made to happen, nor can it be ordered into existence. Yet that potential, that gift, is there for all of us at all times so long as we know how NOT to look.

Each phase is temporary. Each phase is necessary. The pattern constantly repeats. The order and results are never the same. Nothing knowing something. Something knowing nothing. Yes.