Saturday, April 30, 2016

Why Nothing Matters…It Really Does

What follows is an essay written for some online concern. As the author of Seinfeld FAQ, I was asked to delve into the subject of nothing...and I did.

It’s been eighteen years since the last episode of Seinfeld—“The Finale”—aired in prime-time. Since then, the iconic sitcom has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing matters and, too, that nothing lasts forever.

Ironically, Seinfeld’s creators, Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, never, ever promoted the notion that their trailblazing sitcom was about nothing—on the contrary as a matter of fact. David and Seinfeld admit to having been absolutely flabbergasted that a joke—a line from the mouth of George Costanza—became a mega-hit with the fan base. The “show about nothing” aside in “The Pitch” assumed a life of its own and became ingrained in the popular culture. It also established a remarkable staying power as the simplest way to describe what Seinfeld and the off-the-wall antics of Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer were all about.

While the show was very obviously about something—a whole lot of somethingSeinfeld’s distinctive nothing aura is precisely why it has legs. Sure, in the eyes of some, it is hopelessly dated—a ‘90s thing they just can’t get past. After all, Seinfeld was largely of a time before the Internet, smart phones, and GPS technology. It was a pre-Netflix age when individuals actually patronized—in the flesh—brick-and-mortar video stores to rent movies on clumsy VHS tapes. And God help the poor sap who forgot to rewind one before returning it—like the hapless George, who had rented Rochelle, Rochelle in “The Smelly Car.” For the younger generations, videotapes, phone booths, and Rolodexes are the sole province of museums and, of course, nostalgic baby boomers’ Facebook memes.

Time marches on with the inevitable technological advances and changes in everything from sartorial tastes to hairstyles to societal mores. The only constant with the passage of time is nothing. And better than any sitcom before or after it, Seinfeld’s savvy writers understood this. In wading through the daily grind—in engaging in the mundane minutia that is part and parcel of everyday living—human behavior invariably runs true to form and hasn’t really changed all that much over the centuries. Shakespeare is timeless because The Bard of Avon was keenly cognizant of the potent and enduring force of nothingness. He knew that nothing mattered. It really did. Some four centuries later—as a committed observer of the human condition—Jerry Seinfeld followed in the man’s not inconsiderable footsteps.

There were low-talkers and close-talkers in Shakespeare’s day. Neurotic, nihilistic men and women have long been part and parcel of “man’s inhumanity to man.” George once so eloquently described what is undeniably an unenviable task—for anyone, anywhere, and at any point in history. “I hate asking for change,” he said. “They always make a face. It’s like asking them to donate a kidney.” The man who ran the mercantile store in Dodge City, circa 1870, no doubt had a similar reaction when asked to make change. A nothing snapshot in the humdrum moment—perhaps—but something much larger in the grand scheme of things.

Once upon a time in the sixth grade at St. John’s parochial grammar school in the Bronx’s Kingsbridge, classmates and I discoursed on—of all things—the subject of nothing. We were twelve years old and this is what passed for philosophical discussion. We had long been inculcated in our school—and in church—that we came from nothing and would one day return to nothing. So, naturally, some of us couldn’t help but wonder: “What would nothing look like?” Fast forward four decades and I think I know the answer. It would look a lot like Seinfeld because I, for one, think of the show very often as I make my appointed rounds. I experience Seinfeld moments—nothing moments—time and again, so they really must mean something. Nothing matters, I’m certain of that much.

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