The Weight of Light Things

On Nothing and Kindred Subjects

At an auction house, I purchased a small book titled On Nothing and Kindred Subjects, which inspired me to write this blog about lighthearted topics. This quaint, delightful booklet is a captivating treasure. Although it's not widely read today, it is cherished by enthusiasts of English essays (in the tradition of Montaigne, Addison, Lamb) for its elegance and wit. It celebrates the art of contemplation—the pleasure of reflecting on life without the necessity of reaching a grand conclusion.

On Coffee - Leaves and Beans

A Philosophical Coffee

There are few rituals more universally revered and less questioned than the morning cup of coffee. It is not merely a beverage—it is a declaration of intent. A kind of baptism, really, through which the sleeper is reborn into the citizen, the parent, the inbox-responder, or the barely-functional human. No prayer is said aloud, but the sacred mug is lifted with hope, and sometimes desperation. Without it, one might be mistaken for a ghost or, worse, a tea drinker.

Coffee is the modern man’s holy water: it purifies nothing, but it allows him to believe he is prepared to face the world.

I have once witnessed the coffee ritual of a family from Eritrea. There, the beans are not extracted from a vacuum-sealed bag but born anew in fire—roasted until they dance with smoke and fragrance. They do not rush. The beans are ground with reverence, and the thick, dark elixir is poured through a kettle lined with horsehair, as if even the straining of coffee must involve something once alive. To drink it is to receive a gift, not a commodity. Time slows, conversation deepens, and the coffee is not a tool but a companion.

Habesha Coffee Ceremony

Contrast this with my recent booking in a modest guesthouse, where “coffee” was offered in the form of a foil-wrapped, freeze-dried surrender—instant granules beside a chipped mug, and a jug of lukewarm water that had ambitions of once boiling. No incense of roasted bean, no sacred wait, no ceremony. Merely the caffeine. It was like attending a wedding by watching the catering truck drive by.

It occurs to me that coffee, in its extremes, reveals something essential about how we live. The Eritrean, Habesha Coffee ceremony is not simply about taste—it is about presence. Every step—the roasting, the grinding, the pouring—is an invitation to slow down, to gather, to attend. It is not coffee that is worshipped, but being. The instant alternative, by contrast, reflects a different theology: the god of efficiency. In this temple, meaning is secondary to function. Get the jolt, get on with it.

And so, we begin to measure life the same way we measure our mornings—not by richness, but by speed; not by depth, but by convenience. We drink our days like instant coffee: quickly, distractedly, and often while doing something else. And when life lacks flavor, we add more sugar.

But what if, like the Eritrean family, we chose to burn the beans slowly? To let each day be a small ritual, not a race? To pour through something with memory—something like horsehair, or history, or patience?

In a world obsessed with productivity, the humble act of making real coffee might just be a revolutionary pause. A reminder that the richness of life cannot be downloaded, or stirred in. It must be waited for, witnessed, and shared.

Still, let us not be too hard on the tea drinker, for I love my tea and Teasim. There is a whole subject of Nothing hiding in both the leaves and the beans—a quiet that does not demand, only invites. In truth, whether one sips coffee thick as memory or tea clear as silence, the deeper calling is the same: to be awake, not just caffeinated. To find the ritual in the routine. To find balance.

For life is not meant to be gulped nor delayed indefinitely. It is meant to be brewed—sometimes bold, sometimes subtle, always alive with the mystery that something so small as a bean, or a leaf, can carry the flavor of the infinite.