Feeling Empty

It's too easy to rush to fill them up.  Those empty holes are a terror.  But these days, though, you don't even need to rush to fill them - just wait for the next minute, turn on the closest device to your hand, and let the waves of media, the tweets, the status updates, the newsfeeds wash over you with their urgent panic.  Stuff some baked goods into the hole, go fuck yourself stupid, drink a kilo of forgetfulness or suck it into your lungs.

There are more ways to fill the holes than there are holes to fill.

Feeling empty is not such a bad thing.  Not really.  It is, however,  almost unbearably uncomfortable.  Excruciating.  Especially when you are an inheritor of our bizarre and insane Western mindset.  Look at all that life out there out your window, that weirdness that operates at a frequency not designed for you.  That's the result of our mindset.

The nine-foot-high sculpture Wild Man by Ron Mueck,
lives at McClelland Sculpture Park in Langwarrin, Victoria.

You know, feeling empty is sometimes considered a good thing.  It's when you think there's nothing to fill it up with that it becomes a hell.  Or that the emptiness is ... empty.

Sometimes I suspect that the terrifying emptiness is the most fullest thing there is.  And that's why it's so terrifying.

Walking around feeling empty with your hands open is the most exquisite kind of vulnerability there is.  You will feel like your heart is being ripped open out of your ribcage and that you will disintegrate into a pile of shavings on the floor.

And then so often you find that the audacity of your open-handedness has been rewarded by the immortals and suddenly, against all of your unbelief, like a flood, suddenly again you are filled.