ThePanda

Two nights ago, in a rather melodramatic mood, one of my friend goes on to IM me about how he knows absolutely zilch, in fact he spends close to three minutes proving his theories of zilchiness, in a scientific manner, with almost no logical errors (I guess he went for debates). Now this guy obviously knows a lot more than zilch, at least as long as we are sticking to the official definition of zilch (zero or nothing at all), hell everyone who tells you he knows zilch, actually knows a lot more, since he knows what knowing zilch. Now me on the other hand, I have absolutely no idea what knowing zilch is, complaining about the rather limited extents of my knowledge, and intelligence is often detrimental to my having a nice long debate with people, and I therefore stay away from zilchiness. Sadly zilch doesn’t stay away from me, oh no zilch always sticks to me, which is why I get to hear statements like “Dude, my marks are zilch” (from a guy who has a cool 88% compared to my measly 80), “I couldn’t answer zilch” (guy ended up with a 100 on his zilchee test), “You know this phone is worth zilch” (A Rs. 25000 (~$555) thing that I’d so love to have), and so on and so forth. Hell zilch seems to love everyone who talks to me, actually more like everyone who talks to me seems to love zilch.

Now I don’t know if you have ever tried this, but the effects of having a mild headache, while worrying about packages lost in the black-hole that is the postal system are similar to having a pan-galactic gargle blaster, in so much that it allows you to actually feel the force, and think about such utterly zilchy things as zilch itself. I should know, ‘coz similar conditions last night set me on a collision course with zilch and it’s definitions, and after a night’s worth of deep thought, I have decided that I do not agree with the definition of zilch. Oh no I can’t change your views on this, you can go right ahead and believe all you want in the original zilchy definition of zilch, but I have a new perspective and a new definition, and despite the potential communication gaps it is likely to create, I am going to stick to my guns, God save zilch.

Careful observation of zilch, and zilch laden statements over the past 18 years (for a majority of which I didn’t even know what zilch was, shows you how objective an observer I am) have led me to the conclusion that the people who work over at the dictionary makers made a mistake, the informal definition of zilch cannot be zero, since it’s hardly ever used to denote zero. Not only is zilch mathematically anything but zero, even figuratively it ain’t zero, and before some wise ass gets this rather stupid idea, zilch does not tend towards zero, in fact zilch is intelligent, it always steers clear of zero, after all a zilch-zero collision would leave little in terms of utility for zilch. Zilch is a far more interesting phenomena as compared to zero, in fact the panda predicts that in another 20 years some chimp working in some math department would come up with a theory of zilch as advanced as quantum mechanics (or maybe link zilch to all those extra dimensions in M-Theory, Calabi-Yau spaces aren’t exactly working out after all) and end up with a Field’s for his effort, the panda would of course be slogging away, waiting to receive the Nobel or the Field’s for more worthy causes. Zilch is like one of those ubiquitous, undeterminable sub-atomic particles, zilch much like photons in QED sniffs out multiple paths, and the users brain, analyzes both results and then uses the path which it finds most appropriate, and that usually has nothing to do with the atoms inside the users brain or zero, or any other number for that matter. Now contrary to what the past definition may have led you to believe, zilch is not God, it ain’t the devil either and it’s nowhere near being a worthy party conversation starter (imagine having a conversation on zilch and it’s uses with your date). Zilch in short is a comparison between all that we have and all that the known universe has to offer, zilch is the one parameter which defines our insignificance in the huge obtrusive universe which we happen to inhabit, zilch is a comparison between us and us inverted, and the day we found out what zilch exactly is all of us would end up dead, or rather mindlessly numbed, astounded by the sheer magnitude of the universe and our insignificance in their, zilch in essence is what the Total Perspective Vortex was dreamed up for. Now most of us don’t realize the grave aspects of zilch, we are rather adept as surviving as energy-churning zombies with absolutely no idea of the true magnitudes of anything, we survive in a virtual universe of our own creation where zilch doesn’t make us look insignificant, we survive because we are ignorant, and surviving is usually a good thing, it’s not cool (rather hot from my perspective) but it’s good nevertheless. Zilch isn’t a particle or a thing, zilch is the medium, zilch is the force, zilch is what we are suspended in, and mentioning zilch is a grave injustice to the magnitude of zilch itself, for all of us are zilch.

May the zilch be with you….

Ze Panda (!Zilch)

P.S. I know a few who would be offended by this post, well think of this as one of those things which tend to insignificantly increase the quantity that is truly zilch, and insignificant increases are good.