Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing

William Shakespeare wrote a play about “it” where the Hero was a woman.  No Shakespeare wasn’t ahead of his time by making a woman the hero. She was really a Hero in name only. (Hint if you’ve missed the pun, read the play.)

The question is, “Why is nothing important?” I mean we hear about it all of the time and we all use it repeatedly as an answer to questions asked, but better left unanswered. For instance, as teenagers when asked “What are you doing in there?” We’ve all yelled back through the bathroom door “Nothing.” Were we really doing nothing?  Nothing certainly seemed important at the time.

When a group of Washington insiders were caught invading the Democratic offices in the Watergate hotel they claimed that they were doing nothing criminal. Was the nothing they were doing really that innocent?  They certainly wanted to accomplish nothing in the worse way, so it must have been important to them at the time. Since a number of them served time in prison for doing what they claimed was nothing the courts must have felt that it was important.

In 2001 the employees of Enron were told that they had nothing to worry about. Their company was solid. The stock holders of the company were told the same thing “Don’t worry, there is nothing wrong with Enron. By November of that year nothing they should have worried about cost them $11 billion dollars. That would seem to mean that nothing was very important.

Nothing has many different meanings. For instance, when you’ve been sick for a week and a good friend comes over and cleans up your apartment for you, you say “Thank you.”  When they reply “Oh it was nothing,” they really mean “You’d better remember this the next time I ask to borrow fifty bucks.”

When you ask “What would you like for Christmas?” and he responds “Nothing, you’re all I want.” That translates into “A new I-Pad would really be great.”

When you ask “What can fix for dinner?” and she replies “Nothing I’m not hungry.” That translates into “Why don’t you surprise me with something wonderful,” or “I just ate the last brownie and I’m full of guilt.”

How about “There’s nothing I can do about it.” Translated as “It’s too much of an effort,” or “It would cost too much.” This leads me to believe that nothing is really something.

I know that some of you in the back of the room are asking “Why is he writing about this?” The truth is that I had nothing to write about today.

If anyone asks what you’re reading, just say NOTHING.