Like bubbles in a glass of soda water . . .

“He was sitting on a tree-trunk, smoking a cigarette.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing at all,’ he replied, smiling happily.

‘What is amusing you so much?’

‘What is amusing me? Why, nothing. That’s just the point. What amuses me, gentle sir and travelling companion, is precisely nothing, the nothing one does the whole of one’s life. You get up, sit down, speak, write, and it’s all nothing. You buy, sell, marry, don’t marry, and it’s all nothing. Like bubbles in a glass of soda water.’”

(Witold Gombrowicz, Cosmos. Trans. Eric Mosbacher)