Perhaps a nineteenth-century synonym comes closer—blankness—a poetic term for the wiping clean that this experience can provide. It hints, too, at the limitlessness that often comes next.10 Trying to find a precise word to describe the dynamic is fleeting, like attempting to locate francium, an alkali metal, measured but never isolated in any weighted quantity or seen in a way that the eye can detect—one of the most unstable, enigmatic elements on the Earth.
