Tohu Sickness

"Oh, my poor nerves!"

I have a confession – sometimes I get nervous. Not like stage fright, or test nerves, or just-before-you-call-a-girl jitters. I don't really have a problem with any of those, actually (except for the last one, that is). No, I'm talking about general nervousness – pacing fretfully up and down, paralyzed from doing anything remotely useful. Usually it starts acting up right after a big change in my life's routine, like coming home from school for the summer. Or in this case, right after getting a new job.

Don't get me wrong – the job is great. The people are friendly, the atmosphere is relaxed, they seem to like me. I really couldn't ask for more from a summer job. There is no earthly reason for a job like this to make me nervous. And actually, I've been less nervous when I'm actually at work, even if I am a little quiet.

"I certainly have not the talent which some people possess of conversing easily with those I have never seen before."

It's actually the time leading up to work when I get nervous – during my supposed free time. When I'm idle, I start to get nervous, and when I'm nervous, it's difficult to do anything constructive. It can actually get to the point where I'm so nervous that I start to feel sick to my stomach. And after a bit of reflection, I think I've figured out why. I call it, tohu sickness.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep...”

Without form and void. This is the traditional translation of the Hebrew words tohu and bohu, which don't really have an exact english translation. The phrase could be used to describe a desolate wasteland or a ghost town. It carries implications of lifelessness, of a total lack of order. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. I think what a lot of people don't realize is that this phrase is sort of like the title – it's telling us what's going to happen in the narrative that follows. In ancient creation stories, chaos is the pre-creation state. God didn't create the world formless and void – it's not in His character to create chaos. It was that way when he started.

BUT WAIT! Don't we claim that God created the world from nothing?

YES! See, the ancients realized something most of us modern people never think of: chaos = nothing, and nothing = chaos.

*** WARNING: Philosophy Ahead (Here be dragons!) ***

See, “Without form” was really the best way for the translators to capture this phrase, especially if you look at the traditional implications of the word “form.” It's most likely a reference to the concept of form taught by Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher. Aristotle taught that all things consist of matter and form – matter is the actual “stuff” itself, and form is the properties attached the matter and the rules it follows (like the property of “redness” or the laws of physics, for instance). If (for hypothetical reasons) he wanted to talk about matter without form, he called it Prime Matter. The funny thing about Prime Matter – it doesn't actually exist in real life.

Think about it – without form, a thing has no physical properties at all. It doesn't follow the laws of the universe, you can't see it, taste it, or detect it in any way. It doesn't have any essence or abstract properties either, so you can't even conceive of it. Something that can't be detected or thought of, that has no physicality, spirituality, or ideality, simply doesn't exist. No rules, no form, = no existence. Only a formless void. Creation consists of giving new existence – providing order and form where there was none.

My life has become tohu and bohu. Well, not completely – I do have a job that provides me with a schedule and discipline, to some extent. But it also serves to highlight the fact that the rest of my life has no structure. Which is why I'm less nervous at work, and more nervous in the hours leading up to it. I realize in my subconscious that I'm on a time limit – I only have a certain number of hours to try and do something with my life before I leave for work, and I don't know what to do with them. The more nervous I get, the more paralyzed I am; the more the clock runs down, the more nervous I get. It's a vicious cycle – tohu sickness. I have things to do, emails to write, books to read, and I have time to do it in, but that time is a formless void.

So I've gone ahead and written up a daily schedule, to help me get into a new routine – provide some structure to my life. Call it a new creation (sound familiar, theology buffs?). My old routine, when I was at school, ended. The routine I was starting to settle into, before I had a job, has ended now too. The old is gone; the new is coming.

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
~ Isaiah  43:19

P.S. For my friends who've encouraged me to write more - there's a slot in my new schedule for a hobby, and my hobby of choice is writing. Just so you know :)