The Splendid Power of Nothing

There are many beautiful, wonderful things in life.

• The feeling you have when you first fall in love.
• Seeing your best friend finally succeed in the thing they've been striving to conquer for decades.
• Wolfing down 75 hot wings as part of a challenge followed by a trip to the ER.

But, really, is anything better than the rivalry between a comedian and a villainous postal worker in a New York City apartment building?

As a show about nothing, Seinfeld created a universe in which the idiosyncracies of life met the irreverent madness of character dynamics in a perfect nexus of wondrous splendor.

Simply put - they didn't take themselves too damn seriously.

This wasn't a show that ended every episode with a social lecture, followed by an, "awwww" from the audience.

They didn't take public stances on any burning issues of the day. Although Kramer weighing in on the Lorena Bobbitt situation would have been pretty fantastic.

They didn't claim to be a beacon of moral guidance.

They didn't position themselves as leaders, guides or role models.

They just showed up and had fun.

They created a world filled with puffy shirts and low talkers and soup nazis.

A world where characters were killed off by licking stamps.

Where phrases like, "SERENITY NOW!" muttered by hilarious, bitter old men became part of the popular lexicon.

Why was it the most successful show of all-time?

Precisely because they just showed up and had fun.

In a world overrun with gurus telling you how to think, speak, act, live and organize your life, Seinfeld gave us all the permission to simply be.

That;s what we were all looking for, and we didn't even know it.

And we need it today more than ever. The beingness to simply kick our feet up, have some fun and stop taking ourselves and the world around us so seriously.

Because that's where joy lives. That's where it's always lived.

In the splendid power of nothing.

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Geoff Woliner is the author of the Path to Perfectia series and is plugging the books here in his bio because he's nakedly and transparently trying to game the SEO that really likes when you link to stuff from other stuff.