Making Nothing Work

By Peter Lloyd

In the previous Workout, I recommended two steps to prepare for making nothing work. I reminded you that problem solving is a kind of Zero Some Game. When you hit Zero, you’re about to get Some. If you did not read it, I know you’re questioning my sanity. Please allow me to review my premise before rolling your eyes. Or better yet, read The Zero Some Game first.

Everything, the entire universe, came from nothing. Some thirteen billion years later, the chair under your bottom and the sidewalk under your feet still consist of more space than matter. As far as scientists have been able to determine, only fields of energy take up that space.

The best way to make a Big Bang with your ideas, then, is to imitate creation. First, start nowhere. Second, eliminate everything. Now for the third step.

Let the Vacuum Create
In very small moments, at very small dimensions, particles spontaneously pop in and out of nothing. You need monstrously sophisticated equipment to perceive such events, but you cannot deny what happens. Nothing creates. Always and unpredictably. It leaves behind a mess and fails much more often than it succeeds.

Sounds a lot like idea generation, doesn’t it? Most ideas you generate from nothing will amount to nothing, because most will appear and collide with an anti-idea—a reason why it won’t work or a darn good reason not to try it.

But then, nobody said nothing would be easy. Or that you’d easily persuade anyone to go along with your method, much less your results. Nothing frightens some folks. Religious leaders lashed out at untidy concepts like zero, irrational numbers, and ideas that encouraged uncertainty when they were introduced. But uncertainly, as creative people have learned, is where it’s at. Where the best ideas come from.

My wise, old great uncle Dan introduced me to the words of Aristotle, "Nature abhors a vacuum." I thought it was a quaint notion, a clever way to explain such a mysterious state to schoolchildren. Now I wonder, if Nature owes its existence to nothing, what kind of gratitude is that?

To be continued
Time and space hold all the answers but I’m running out of both. Next time, Thanks for Nothing.

Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.

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