Stuff & Emptiness: Of Hollow Rings in Solid Ball-Rooms
When I walk into a room, what do I see?
Let us, for our purposes, stipulate two categories of possible objects: one solid & the other vacuous. The said secernment accommodates the following investigation:
As I enter the ballroom, do I see walls, bodies, furniture? The grand piano, the mingling guests, the cocktail bar, the benighted walls, the Christmas Tree draped in red tinsel? Such objects pertain to the first class—substance, stuff, and solidity.
Or, poised on the threshold of the parlor, do I orient rather to the negative space?
Do I sense the space between the walls and in the doorframe whence my vantage stands?
The hollow bulbs of half-filled champagne glasses,
The incorporeal air between the needles on an evergreen?
To the same scene, I can orient in sundry ways—one towards stuff, the other towards space. Crucially, how does either orientation affect my posture & experience? Twenty-four-carrot gold has its value. And yet, what good is a ring without the empty center? It's not much of an ornament if a fellow can't get a finger through it. How useful is a champagne glass that is not first filled with emptiness? Solid crystal is a sore receptacle for any festive draught. And the parlor itself—what sort of Christmas party might befall inside were there no dimension of vacuity to divide the walls?
Stuff represents security; space is the symbolic potential for action.
For our purposes as movers, solidity is spoken for, as it were: I have never yet met a fellow who traverses even the ricketiest of solid walls. Space, conversely, remains the frontier for kinetic possibility.
A perception of space is a skillful means towards ease & openness of posture. When I appreciate the envelope of emptiness about me, I feel my shoulders relax, my neck straighten, & my breath expand to the omnidirectional horizon. But don't necessarily (dis)believe my testimony on the matter—try for yourself! The world provides all the instruction we need, if only we are willing to listen to our experience.
The Ring:
A plain gold ring.
