Notes on Nothing: The Joy of Being Nobody

by Anonymous

From the author's

This is a book about Nothing. You could also say it’s a book about Everything. Most accurately perhaps, it’s a book about Nothing-as-Everything and Everything-as-Nothing. It takes as its spine an account of a specific experience that seemed to happen to me, during which there wasn’t very much “Me” around. There have been many names given to these kinds of “non-experiences”, depending on what tradition or viewpoint they are being seen from.

Here let’s call it a meeting with Nothing, that never actually happened.

Genres: Essays, Philosophy

112 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2024

About the author

Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:

* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author

Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.

See also: Anonymous

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thoughtful and well-designed book on one of my favorite subject matters - nothing. There is a lot of stuff happening in Nothing, both in this small book, as well as the Big Nothing.

[Cory Hinkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a lovely little book that grows in meaning as you read. It’s hard to describe a book about nothing and nothingness but there is something meditative and deep about this read, the kind of book you want to read again to gain deeper meaning, a book you want to reach for now and again to read a few pages to remember that our egos are often the things that get in the way of so much possibility in our lives and in the world.

[Julian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could say that I liked this book, but there may not be any real separate ‘I’ to do the liking.

[Ming Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this. It was sweet and I appreciated how although the subject and experience is very much in line with Buddhist traditions the author strayed away from using any prescriptivist language which felt appropriate. I wasn’t super impressed though since I often have similar feelings and experiences myself… the feelings of the boundaries between yourself and the world dissolving, the feeling of looking at an object and seeing nothing only a form, the feeling of being a baby and having all stimuli be unknown… I feel like this all the time. The language was nice though. I especially liked when he compared a person to a whirlpool and defined it as the “grounds of possibility” and a “deep structure”— the structure of someone. I feel like the point of reading and learning about other people is to dissolve, rearrange, stretch, and twist the structure of ourselves and our grounds of possibility. My only issue with this text I think was the constant theorizing(?) that “Nothing is Everything” and “Everything is Nothing”. I didn’t totally understand the point of saying this so much was.

[Sarrah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this one up at a book fair solely because of the endorsement from Zadie Smith on the cover. It seems this book works to elucidate a sort of post human condition, a collapse of the anthropocentric through a combined psychoanalytical and metaphysical approach. But it acknowledges the futility in the endeavor, the attempts to relay a state of existence that exists (or does not exist) outside of everything we know (or don’t know) using only those means which we do (or don’t) know. A lovely little read.

[Wrymartini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a trip into an alternate dimension, 'Notes on Nothing' shakes you out of your comfortable complacency and brings you face to face with the idea of nothing. Is it death? Is it life? Is it the possibility of everything and nothing all at once? Beautifully written, intensely personal, and pretty-much indescribable, I urge you to read this book for a journey into the joy of nothing.

[Yess]

Recomendado por Fede alvarez described as an hour of blissful meditation

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Notes on Nothing is a beautiful (if occasionally confronting!) contemplation on transcending the separateness that we carry with us in our daily lives. It's a wonderful read for a sunny afternoon, rainy morning, or some space in between. This book will leave you breathing a little easier and, if you're anything like me, feeling grateful for being your self.