The Law of Equivalent Exchange in “Full Metal Alchemist” is really just a reformulation of the First Law of Thermodynamics: matter or energy cannot be created or destroyed. Everything has a price. You cannot create something from nothing. This often leads to the facile interpretation that life is a zero sum game, where one person’s loss is another person’s gain, and vice-versa.

But the fact of the matter is that people are terrible at estimating the true value of things. For the longest time, no one really realized how much energy was locked up in the form of matter until a bored patent clerk figured out (through very convoluted means) that E=mc². Then there’s the whole idea of false vacuum and the energy contained in the vast interstitial space between atoms, even between subatomic particles. Given the general extravagance (some might even say “wastefulness”) of the universe, it actually seems likely that the universe is far more generous than any human being has ever imagined. Just because you can’t think of a use for something doesn’t mean it’s “nothing”. Chances are you’re grossly underestimating the worth of everything around you. There’s more in this universe than you can ever imagine, and you’d be surprised how much “nothing” can provide.