Word of the Day: nullibicity

nullibicity (n)

The state of being nowhere (the opposite of ubiquity); nonexistence.

"In order to insist on the nullibicity of universal standards of behavior, a would-be consistent relativist would have to maintain that murder, torture, the killing of infants, mass rape, pickpocketing, lying, slavery, cruelty, insulting one's hosts, and other forms of hurtful behavior are not necessarily wrong or even morally problematic."
--Sabrina P. Ramet, The Liberal Project and the Transformation of Democracy: The Case of East Central Europe

The Holy Grail, the Fountain of Youth, a perpetual-motion machine, cold fusion -- many "things" are nonexistent or nowhere to be found, but people keep searching for them. Could it be that the search or the wanting is the point, that the seekers really wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they actually reached the goal one day?

A writer and "monologist" (spoken-word artist) I liked, the late Spalding Gray, used to talk about his search for "the perfect moment", an elusive point in time when nothing else exists, one is just "in the moment". Apparently, he found his once, on a beach in Thailand (read or listen to his book Swimming to Cambodia). I'm still searching, and not really expecting to find, but more and more, I think it doesn't matter. The possibility of coming close or closer is enough to keep me going, and the peregrination has a lot of interesting side trips.