It started with “nothing in particular”.

 I like that expression because it’s actually used in the complete opposite way than it would seem to indicate. We typically use it to mean “nothing specific”, when the words themselves seem to indicate “nothing specifically”. When you speak about Nothing In Particular, you should be talking about the vast spectrum of Nothing-ness, the Unimaginable Thought, rendered impossible by it’s own existance.

Boring Person A: I think I’m gonna go check out a movie.

Literal Person B: Oh yeah? No shit.

A: ….

B: …so what were you thinking about seeing?

A: Oh, nothing in particular. I heard that the new-

B: HOOOOOOOOOOW!?!?!?!?!?!

  Listen: no one seems to talk about things like Nothingness anymore. It’s not the kind of thing you can bring up at parties (trust me!), you just get looked at like the guy who was in a band throughout college that was on the precipice of getting signed, but then things fell apart and his dream faded away so now he overcompensates by getting kinda too drunk and way too intense in low-key situations, making everyone uncomfortable. Or so I’ve heard.

 What’s frustrating about it is that in days of yore (nee Olden Days), it’s exactly the kind of thing that was encouraged to pass the time. To sit around a fire while chewing on rabbit gristle and contemplating the vast and mystifying boundaries of the Universe, or the lack thereof, was seen as a mark of a challenging mind. Emperors and Kings would hire Philosophers to just sit around and think. I mean they also hired Wizards and Bards and Concubines, which have also fallen out of vogue, but still!

 ANYWAY I bring this all up because today the Nerd Newsworld was all abuzz with Stephan Hawking’s prediction that not only do aliens probably exist, but that they should probably be avoided (because they’ll be violent, technologically-advanced, desperate nomads) lest they kill us all and steal the Earth. And name it something dumb.

 Hawking is awesome. Adulturous and probably morally empty, but awesome. A brilliant mind and a tribute to the spectacle of a Human Ability to reinvent how we perceive reality, even in the modern age. It’s just… really? He basically described the plot of V. Or Dune. Or an episode of Torchwood I just watched.

 It doesn’t matter whether he ends up being correct or not, of course, his prediction is given a certain amount of creedence having simply emerged from his mouth squawk-box. I guess I’m happy that a smart person is being listened to, but I’m also slightly bummed that anyone who isn’t the (capital S capital P) Smartest Person doesn’t have the same ability to affect the public consciousness. Do you have to be a genius to have an original thought? Write a series of books, finish (go to) college to have something to contribute?

 I guess everyone’s probably right though. I mean this is Stephen “Fucking” Hawking we’re talking about.

-diggy