Zeroth

Zeroth, the universal force and desire to move toward balance, plays prominently into my belief system.

Both my college-professor parents discussed potential within their respective fields as the primary force driving reality. I misunderstood concepts, a running joke among my siblings, how I got things wrong, often taking things literally.
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Daddy taught philosophy of science, centering around ancient Greeks theories on education, and the laws of thermodynamics. I understood his simplified explanations about energy and thermodynamics. A heating source disperses heat molecules into a room, dividing them until everything reaches the same temperature. It’s the differences in temperature that causes heat to move, thus zeroth, the synergy of all three laws of motion. Motion means change, at a molecular level. Gravitational force is when larger objects pull smaller objects toward them. Both movements come from the universe trying to achieve balance. The laws of thermodynamics explain how movement works, with potential proven by the outcome. If it couldn’t do it, it wouldn’t do it, said the ancient Greeks. They were all about predicting outcomes from observations. By gathering data, patterns become obvious, illuminating reality beyond our limited horizons. The sun shining on an object reveals minute details, with the outcome being greater understanding.

Mama studied and taught humanist psychology, as applied to child development, following Carl Rogers and Dr. Spock, whose permissive childrearing methods emerged after WWII. Humanists believed our potential drives us to grow up, and from a nurturing supportive environment springs healthy happy humans. I saw the laws of thermodynamics could be applied to enlighten us about the human condition, measuring how people change when they encounter each other. If learning drives the human potential to be actualized, illuminated, like Daddy channeling Aristotle channeling Plato channeling Socrates surmised, then learning drives the potential of humans to grow and thrive, says Carl Rogers. Both require a rich environment, designed to meet needs, for potential to actualize. Both use observable data which they then analyzed. Both philosophy--what my father studied and taught--and psychology--what my mother studied and taught--use the concept of potential to explain how change occurs, how children grow up, and how molecules alter and align themselves. Knowledge illuminates the observable world, changing our views, giving us a broader horizon, said both their studies. That’s how I was raised, at the intersection of those two fields, where potential is the driving force.
I have a disorder which prevents me from remembering my horizon, which leaves me disoriented in familiar surroundings. That might be what my mother noticed when she concluded wrongly that I disliked change. Not true. I must learn my place to feel comfortable, and it takes me longer to learn my place than it does others. I need to be grounded by a landmark. Parks make good landmarks. I used parks to find my way around Dubuque, Iowa, our adopted hometown. I kept my movement close to home, and ventured out slowly, as I got older. It was harder to see when everything was in transition. I’d latch onto one or another of my family to help me through the fog of chaos, as I mapped out new horizons. An optical, or practical, horizon is limited by the physical realm, while the cosmological horizon expands. I could expand my own limitations from my oriented family members, I found.
I barely understood those concepts when taking physics in my junior year of college. My father, whose doctoral dissertation centered on the laws of thermodynamics, helped me with the cognitive dissonance that overcame me when attempting to understand basic science principles. Daddy used the Socratic method, as understood by Plato, explained by Aristotle, and imparted it down to me when my turn came. That’s how I passed physics-for-non-science majors, barely understanding any of it.


1960
I stood in front of my house, squinting at the sky, studying the clouds and horizon, while the sun warmed my skin and burned my eyes.
“If we moved hundreds of miles from Washington DC to Dubuque, then why are we the same distance from the sun and the sky?”
Daddy described then drew a model to show me how it was an optical illusion, that my limited perspective came from a science concept that I would understand in the distant future, called a practical horizon, one which I could observe with my 4-year-old eyes and brain. Daddy’s explanation evolved my thinking to the cosmological horizon, one which could be described by my father using modeling, still within human purview, but not easily comprehensible. We could all draw railroad tracks which disappeared into a point, which Daddy showed me, along with artwork on the walls, to show how things looked at a distance. I understood that and used it to reevaluate my horizon on the sidewalk. My siblings inexplicably understood horizons. Living the next 14 years within a 5-block radius gave me the same practical horizon, while adding the vast databases of my siblings and parents expanded my cosmological horizon.






1976
I needed simple explanations to understand physics, which I got from my dad, now my college roommate. The familiar confusion feelings overcame me when trying to understand science concepts like relativity--how things look different depending on your perspective. Daddy explained my spatial disorientation to me once again, second nature to him after tutoring me throughout my life on things my other family members easily understood. He explained the physics concepts enough for me to get a B in that class, the first science class I understood. Later in life, I was diagnosed with 8% visual memory, which explained using empirical data why I got turned around and lost my entire life. My mother and son shared that gene with me, illustrating genetics. Science concepts make more sense when I see them in action.
The physics class boiled down concepts into vocabulary and cartoons. I understood gravity as a force pulling objects toward each other; and relativity as the concept of how things look different depending on comparison. Large objects have powerful gravitational pull, which overcomes weaker forces, explaining black holes. Heat molecules gravitate toward places with less heat molecules, following that law about equilibrium. Black holes exist when the gravitational force outweighs other laws of physics, creating a vacuum. I understood enough to pass with a B, because of two reasons—one I had my dad, the savant genius who knew how to tutor me, explaining concepts; and two, the professor enjoyed teaching non science majors, so made sure we passed without understanding.
The same concepts can be used to illuminate aspects of the human condition, I found, when examining for potential. Using potential as a force helped fill in blanks in science, I noticed. Neither parent could explain potential, which couldn’t be measured, since it didn’t exist. Or did it? If a child moves along a trajectory, learning to walk and talk in an order, does that child start with the potential or does work create the potential? What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Did my potential increase or decrease from the osmosis of learning through my family members, and then did their work translate into more potential for me? The thermodynamic system laws could be applied to other systems, to use to apply to human psychology, especially using Carl Rogers humanist model, which harked back to Athens and Aristotle’s studying of psychology. My potential existed whether measured or not, and I knew what it was. It was what I chose it to be, another axiom practiced by my intellectual parents. I could work, or not. Work increased my potential to learn, said evidence. My family’s work rubbed off, said evidence. By being a Hughes, I got credit for others work, proving zeroth balance in families, not just thermodynamic systems.


1985
I found the zeroth concept of searching for balance and equilibrium a good model to explain my grief after my father died, leaving a black hole in my soul, to be filled going forward. Interchanging roles and holes, when you remove a person from a family system, the others in that system strive for equilibrium by shifting roles, especially if one role had more gravitational pull to start. That dynamic horizon, the shifting horizon from a black hole, creates cognitive dissonance, until the soul finds equilibrium.
Daddy, ever the teacher, used the dialectic to help me sort out dilemmas. We discussed the ethical dilemma of making decisions, whenever I was faced with major decisions. I had the entire spectrum of views to gather, with every Hughes weighing in. It was the most practiced Hughes tradition, exploring all sides of any issue. He helped me decide to leave home the third time I left, then questioned my decision the fourth and final time.
Daddy told me a month before his death, on our weekly call, he was ready to die, too weak from cancer, not feeling like he was up to talking on the phone or reporting on his own health deteriorating. That was our last phone conversation.
My brother picked me up from the airport and drove me to the hospital where my sister had been with Daddy all night long. Us three made it to Daddy’s side before he died.
Daddy lost his remaining whisper he had the last time I saw him, four months earlier. He wrote on a pad, his eyes lighting up with the spark of imparting more wisdom to me. He wrote that he was not scared, that he had already viewed the other side, there was light, and "Mary" there. Was that Mary Virgin Mother, or Daddy's oldest sister Mary, more consistent with the views of the afterlife by others who have traversed back and forth talking about seeing dead relatives? Daddy wrote more about how having only fluids was the right decision, and how he felt peace. That peace was something Daddy first spoke of when I spent the three months in Canton, Ohio, with him the past winter. Death did not scare him now, he wrote. Daddy looked at me intently, sharing his wisdom for the last time, during my short visit to his hospital room.
Ever the teacher, Daddy went to his grave imparting knowledge, wanting his legacy to be his teaching.
Daddy wrote down he wanted me to use his food stamps to buy the ingredients for dinner. His hospitality did not leave him, even in his last hours. My brother made a list and sent me out to the specialty grocery to buy ingredients for a recipe. As my sister, brother and I sat down to eat, the phone rang. It was the hospital. We never ate our saffron fish dish. As we pulled up, clouds ominously circled over the hospital. I looked up and felt the black hole as Daddy left the building. The starkness of looking through a phone book for a funeral home shifted my horizon, which did not settle for years.
"Where do you want the body sent?" right after Daddy wrote notes to me created a disorientation, which lasted years.
The next few weeks contained nothing but a swirl of conflicting emotions, none with any balance. The partially planned funeral several states away; the lack of communication between Daddy and the others; the dismantling of a household that had been my home—all prevented me from helping execute Daddy’s written wishes. Living wills become obsolete upon death.
"Funerals are for the living," said someone, in one of the dozens of phone calls and conversations over the next few weeks.
Once Daddy left this earth, his requests disappeared into a void, replaced with the state of perpetual motion. Zeroth, the law of thermodynamics which creates equilibrium, the energy from one leaving entity leaving the system, the disorder caused by the transition, exacerbated my already flimsy cosmological horizon.
Daddy did not want merchants to get ahold of his nonexistent money. He spent precious time warning me about funeral parlors taking advantage of grieving families. He wanted none of it, he said, and put it into his living will, alongside the no extraordinary measures that allowed him peace in his last moments, the peace of controlling his own end. The black hole left by his absence left me reeling, as other forces took over.
Each of Daddy’s six children had our own agendas, I found out, our own gravitational forces swaying the mood. My sister in charge did things according to etiquette, with little regard for Daddy’s wishes. She willingly gave her own money to merchants, spending energy filling up the austerity of the black hole. I felt overwhelmed with grief and sank into despair, not being able to exact Daddy’s wishes, something I felt compelled to do. I was given laundry and car packing duties, as we followed our father’s body back to his hometown to be buried.
We three ended up on the road to Syracuse, New York, following the body which flew there before us, meeting up at a hotel with the other three. On the road to New York, our emotions collided. We ended up parked alongside the highway, cars whipping past us, under a bridge. My siblings turned their angst toward me, energy seething, floating around with no place to land. I barely listened as my brother ranted about his lack of relationships, with my sister nodding in agreement, that being my fault, somehow, the balance being to pass blame.
Daddy had been a stalwart in my life, the one who always defended me, who appreciated me for who I was, and was the only one who did not put blame on me for others' problems. I was without Daddy, and these two turned on me. Now that I can sort out emotions, I know I had a multitude of them swirling. I had no ability to deal with my grief, or my siblings, all careening around banging into each other. I put my headphones on, shrinking my horizon to the lyrics of Cyndi Lauper.
To expand my horizon, I needed to remember Daddy’s dialectic discussions about competing. Competition wasted energy; cooperation added energy, creating balance. The hole created in our family system left us unbalanced, spatially disoriented. We kept on moving forward as fast as we could, all on a different trajectory, all out of balance. If we stopped competing, and started cooperating, would that help?
When we pulled up into the hotel, I saw the rest of my siblings After ten hours of grueling conflict which had no clear cause or solution, I ran, fleeing spatial disorientation, seeking out balance through perpetual motion, the Hughes way forward. I ran down the sidewalk in the dusk, barefoot, not noticing my surroundings. My youngest sister ran after me, catching me within a few blocks. There we sat on the curb, me in my t-shirt and shorts outfit, barefoot; her in her dress and heels. I regained my sense of balance, accepted that Daddy was gone, and that the rest of us were left to cope.
As we walked back to the motel, we enjoyed the friendliness of the neighbors, all who greeted us warmly, after seeing us run the other way moments before. We came for a funeral, we exclaimed. Our dad is from here. He died. The neighbors smiled and nodded, the nicest people to me that day. I knew now to stuff my feelings; this was not the time to assert a living will. A black hole existed where Daddy used to be.
"Daddy said to make sure the merchants did not rip us off," I explained to my big sister, who had taken over once we all arrived, answering her question about my sullenness.
"He was right," Teri said, laughing. "We just agreed to a $300 coffin liner because the undertaker said Daddy would seep out into the ground without it,”
Hearing the details of merchants duping my sisters out of money caused an acceptance to creep over me. The rest of the funeral arrangements went without a hitch. With new clothes on, with the modern haircut and added weight given him by the undertaker, Daddy went into the grave looking like someone else. I knew he would not have cared once I thought about it. Funerals are for the living.
Daddy’s best friend from his first job with the CIA, Sam, showed up for the wake and funeral. We had a lengthy conversation. Sam used me in place of Daddy, to continue talking to the empty spot that used to be occupied by Daddy.
Daddy always said, "Up the rebels" to me, when he said goodbye--on the phone, and when he took me to the bus station, I told Sam.
"That was the battle cry of the IRA during the 1917 Easter Rebellion," Sam told me. While talking, I felt close to my father, like this funeral was for him, and not for the living.
At the graveside, someone brought along a single rose, to put on top of the coffin, a future family tradition for Hughes grandchildren started at Daddy's graveside with his single grandchild, age 15 months.
When she tossed the rose onto the coffin, Sam raised his fist and locked eyes with me.
"Up the rebels".
Everyone repeated his action and words.
We joined forces after the funeral to dismantle what had been my home.
Once we emptied out the rundown rental house Daddy lived in for his last 12 years, I headed back to my home in Austin Texas.


For the next two years, I sought outlets and explanations for the plethora of unknown unrecognizable feelings coming my way. I learned about grief, about myself, and how all humans feel after losing someone they love. The many emotions spawned from grief were normal, I found out when I went to two free therapists I found in town.
I harnessed the energy from my grief into changing myself, into planning a different future. I needed to fill in the holes, to accept loss, to let the laws of thermodynamics flow free.
The primary urge that overcame me was to procreate. My boyfriend and I spent a couple of years deciding whether we wanted to procreate together. We decided yes, and had two boys, both with genes from Hughes running through their blood. ​

Image by Pawel Czerwinski / Unsplash

​The author is Josie Hughes.
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