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Couldn't get the number zero out of my mind all day today. It has a paralyzing effect on me that I can't seem to shake. I'm irrationally drawn to it. The number. The word. The concept. Is it a beginning? Is it an end? Is it nothing? Can there even be nothing?

The character is far too similar to an 'O' often being rewritten with a strike through it to differentiate it from the symbolic alphabet, though our eyes have grown accustomed to it even without the obvious modifier. Below, I'll place them adjacent to one another so that you may compare and contrast for yourself:

O 0

The 'O'. A "Perfect Circle". No beginning. No end. Uniform throughout.

The '0'. An elliptical shape. No beginning. No end. Variant and "squished" at the ends. Notice I mark them as "ends" and not top and bottom.

As children we learn of shapes, such as the circle, first. We are taught abstractions first, but one could argue zero is a closer symbolic representation to the subject. The zero is painfully pragmatic and rooted in our day to day lives. An ever present phantom. The circle on the other hand, has over the years been a fill in for an impossible standard to which we may never reach, maybe not so much the letter 'O' but the shape. Even pi is just a close approximation. A labor of pressing many straight lines to look as though it were one continuous uniform motion. Everything about the circle evokes a unity of both form and concept.

The character for zero, though, from the outset, has perceivable poles. Clearly demarcated areas where a change can be seen, based on opposition. A form represented, possibly, by what an attempt of unifying opposing structures looks like, or perhaps it's really a more perfect circle. Unlike the circle, it is not beyond our reach. It is far more understandable, almost to a depressive extent. A stinging cold pragmatism. In zero begins everything, where everything is defined, and where everything returns. A slap in the face to the phrase, "We cannot be defined by what we are not." On the contrary, the inherent dualism of zero opposes all things and serves as a canon to everything that was, will be, for all eternity, as well as for those that won't ever be.

As void as zero is, it's concept is the root definition of all. Such a small number responsible for so much. The measure to which all is compared. Serving as a bookend to our entire lives.

All the things that make us who we are, ultimately characters defined by our actions. Yet, only in contrast to a world without us. Before we live, the world is without us. After we die, the world is yet again without. Matter is neither created nor destroyed but our entire being, imagination and all, sandwiched by zero. Our lives, forever hurdling towards and simultaneously spawned from zero. Existence revolving around a central invisible point. Simultaneously pushed and pulled. Constantly variable. Never ending. Never repeating. A stark contrast to a Fibonacci sequence. Life's answer to what zero does naturally.

So 2020 does not demarcate a new decade, as there was no year zero and counting starts from one. The absence of a zero has never been more subtle and serving of the concept of the character. That, which is not there, yet, serves as a starting point that cannot be squared. An invisible measure to which its presence may be denied but it's existence cannot. A force unto its own. A symbolic character that says more about the heavenly bodies than the abstract circle which, in our youth, is supplanted as a description to how those objects interact with each other. Both, a way to witness something that isn't perceivable, but the circle is missing that special something.

An entire day, dedicated to zero pretty much.

But that's not what this post was originally intended to be about. As per usual, in my sitting down to write about my actual plans, instead I distracted myself with nothing.

Never a dull moment.

So what's this all about?

I've had this concept for a, I don't quite know how to put it, so I'll just call it an action. A work of some kind. A work that constantly serves as simultaneously an exercise for me and hopefully a source of entertainment | thought | discussion | inspiration for you the observer | witness. I'm tentatively calling it, "The Rho'dshow", but I'd like it to encompass a multitude of different things delivered through various methods. It's not some highly conceptual thing, I'm just at a loss for words as to what it actually will be if anything. I'm fairly sure the title alone encompasses it though. It's the simplest form to which I could describe it. It's not a podcast, radio show, stream, post, vlog, blog, program, or tutorial but a work that encompasses aspects of all those things. I just have trouble with two things:

1. Committing to one concept consistently.
2. Starting.

So I'm just going to start doing, if that makes any sense.

I spend an inordinate amount of time in my head and I'm growing anxious keeping everything to myself all the time. So while I'm not looking to make this an inaugural announcement I think it'll serve as a tentative outline for things to come.

Thank you reading | watching | listening | witnessing.