The Great Empty
"I hate the feeling when you really don't have any emotion. You feel so empty. You're not happy, you're not sad. You're nothing. When your mind is spinning, but you can't feel anything." - unknown.
I was staring at the wall the other day, contemplating my life's choices, when I became aware that I was feeling empty. It's not like this was a new sensation; I've felt this way many times. One that stands out in my memory was a time that I catered a company Christmas party. They loved the food so much that they all stood and clapped at the end. Over a hundred people were smiling and cheering. I smiled, waved, and said thank you, all the things that you are required to do, but inside, I felt nothing. I don't even remember what company it was or the food I served them. I would think that something was wrong with me, but I have seen that same dead look in the eyes of some other people getting well-deserved praise for something they did. It makes me wonder why this happens.
First of all, what causes us to notice this hollowness inside? "How is it possible to be so full of emptiness?" - Vivi Dale. Self-help is big business and has been for years. Humans like to look around and compare ourselves to others, and when we find ourselves lacking, we often want someone to tell us how to be better. If only we acquire this or that desirable trait, we will be content. We then follow the prescribed plan of someone who has what we think we need and proceed to get results. Some of it sticks and becomes our habits, and some of it does not. After you get what you wanted, wealth, health, love, or maybe somewhere in the middle of the process, you might start to think that all this striving is ridiculous. At some point in life, many people will find that self-improvement does not resolve existential emptiness. Why would this happen? "They realized that the emptiness of the soul cannot be filled even with all the things of the world." - Evan Klima.
That realization will not immediately stop you from trying because feeling empty is uncomfortable. "How can emptiness be so heavy?" - Six Word Story. Dr. K from HealthyGamerGG says that "If happiness were in the object (or I would say the acquisition of something), then every time you got what you wanted, it would consistently make you happy." And yet this does not happen. "We are all after something that makes the empty spaces in us make sense." - faraway. This search can lead down paths that numb the feeling or passions that mask it. "All sins are attempts to fill voids." - Simone Weil. In an attempt to be relevant, we try something, anything. We do not want to believe that our lives do not matter.
To escape the meaninglessness of our existence, we can become attached to extreme thinking or views. "All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions." - William Butler Yeats. One of those extremes is nihilism- the belief that life has no meaning. Dr. K says that it is a natural reaction to having your efforts to improve your situation frustrated. It is finding out (sometimes at a young age) that no one is going to come along and give meaning and purpose to your life and that maybe you aren't 'all that.' Nihilism is often the conclusion that people who contemplate themselves come to. I get it. I want to matter and make a difference, but there is no way to impress everyone, and sometimes the harder you try, the more resistance you meet. Or you succeed and find that praise is hollow.
Other things can deplete our reserves and leave us feeling empty. One of those things can be our relationships with other people. "If giving leaves you feeling empty, you're giving too much to the wrong person." - Pavana. When this happens, it is a good idea to stop and examine your motives. Why are you feeling empty after giving? Maybe you are giving with the hope of getting something in return, even if that is just you wanting to appear to be 'good'. "I'm always spilling myself for people who want nothing more than a taste, then wonder why I constantly feel empty." - Stephanie Bennett-Henry. Did these people ask you to do all that you are doing for them? "Maybe we feel empty because we leave pieces of us in everything we used to love." - R.M. Drake. Giving too much, giving to the wrong people, giving with the wrong motivation, or a combination of all three can deplete you. Perhaps this is the wrong perspective. Losing the old you leaves room for something better to take its place.
"The usefulness of the cup is its emptiness." - OSHO. What can we do to keep this feeling of emptiness from causing us harm? We can reframe our perspective on it. "The emptiness I feel is not a void left by things I've lost. It is soul space ready to be filled with new dreams." - @theonewiththepoetry. The reason that we want to fill the void is not bad if we use it as a motivator for change. How much of the help available to us now came from people who have overcome? "We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use." - Lao Tzu.
A certain amount of emptiness is needed to handle the awful things that take place. Emptiness can be destructive when it is used to numb the effects of reality, but conscious emptiness is the space where you can face it. Emptiness is needed so you can fill it with something, a purpose, love, gratitude, whatever you use to transcend reality and make your existence mean something to you. "Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or to be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors." - Andrew Boyd. I know that there will be times that you will feel that emptiness in your own soul, and I hope that when you do, you are not crushed by it, but that you will see it for what it is- a space to fill with something better. When emptiness is understood, as opposed to being avoided, it will help us to endure, find love and joy, and give us the chance to choose to give our own lives meaning.
Love and Hope,
Big Sky Baby