Our Existential Void  
SYNOPSIS:

    We feel a haunting hollowness in the depths of our beings.
This is much worse that the ordinary kinds of emptiness,
which we attempt to fill by possessions, achievement, relationships, etc.
Can we acknowledge a primordial inward lack?
Can we discover deeper forms of fulfillment?
Can our Existential Void be filled?

OUTLINE:

I.  TWO KINDS OF EMPTINESS

II.  ATTEMPTING TO FILL OUR EXISTENTIAL VOID

III.  EXISTENTIAL FULFILLMENT

IV.  SUMMARY: FIVE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
       ORDINARY EMPTINESS AND OUR EXISTENTIAL VOID

Our Existential Void

by James Leonard Park

     There is a wind blowing inside us, thru a wasteland of emptiness. 
We feel like useless seeds blown around the desert,
without the possibility of germinating to fulfill our potential.
Our nothingness is an internal vacuum with an insatiable appetite,
a black hole at our core, threatening to suck everything else in. 
Our lives are essentially hollow, lacking inner strength and vigor. 

     We seem to have lost our insides;
our guts have been removed and discarded.
The Void within gives a painful, drawn feeling to our faces. 
We know that we are doomed creatures, fighting hopelessly for life. 
The Existential Void is quicksand into which we sink ever more quickly. 
We know we should be doing something, but we don't know what.
When we change our activities, hoping to escape the Void,
the gnawing feeling of emptiness comes right along with us. 

     The Void is a dis-ease of our depths, the distress of nothingness,
a hollowness that threatens to engulf and dissolve the rest of our being.
This internal Void threatens to consume us
because our skin will become too thin to stand up all by itself. 
At best, we can isolate the Malaise, encapsulate the gnawing Void,
before it devours our whole being and makes us disappear. 



I.  TWO KINDS OF EMPTINESS

     This devastating hollowness and screaming internal Void
is really a deep encounter with our Existential Predicament. 
But to describe our Malaise, we borrow words from ordinary experience. 

     1. "Emptiness" normally indicates some specific lack: 
"The room is empty" means it lacks either people or furniture. 
"The glass is empty" means the juice is gone. 
However, "my life is empty" does not suggest what might be missing.
Nevertheless, we often treat this deeper sense of nullity and void
as if it could be filled with something: 
"If only I had money..."  "If only someone would love me..." 
But what if we have it all: family, friends, status, security, health,
and enough money to go anywhere and do anything we want? 
Perhaps we feel the Existential Void especially when we "have it all".

     2. We understand the causes of ordinary feelings of hollowness: 
A relationship has collapsed, leaving an aching void in our lives. 
A job has come to an end and we miss whatever it meant to us.
We can feel empty when our children grow up and move away from home. 
But below these ordinary, intelligible deficiencies
lies a deeper spiritual longing, an inexplicable 'emptiness',
a lack of content or purpose to life, which nothing can fill.

     3. Ordinary emptiness is temporary because the lack is specific: 
As soon as we find a new person to love, that void is filled.
But if attaining our dreams does not make us complete,
perhaps we are noticing our Existential Void, a permanent nothingness. 

     4. Usually whatever we lack refers to one area of concern:
Our need for love is not the same as our need for money. 
But our Existential Void is not limited and defined. 
There is no painless place in our being to which we can fly for refuge. 
Our whole being is one empty ache.                       

     5. Each ordinary feeling of deficiency implies what we need: 
If we feel unloved, we can seek better relationships. 
If we feel poor, we can try to earn more money. 
But nothing specific can satisfy our existential hunger. 
Nothing we can attract, buy, or achieve will fill our inner Void.
This inward frustration does not imply what is lacking. 
Initially we might feel impelled toward striving and accomplishing 
because in the past, achieving something has brought satisfaction. 
But ultimate fulfillment comes not
by doing, having, loving, or being entertained. 



II.  ATTEMPTING TO FILL OUR EXISTENTIAL VOID

     Ordinary hollowness can be filled by 'the good life'. 
But the other hollowness remains empty no matter what we try. 
Only after concerted efforts to fill our Existential Void
with the things that satisfy our ordinary longings
are we convinced that we cannot fill our deepest hollowness. 

     Those momentary experiences of happiness and 'fulfillment'
—which fooled us that we were on the right path—
turn out to be evasions and distractions from the real problem,
techniques for covering our inner Void, not for filling it. 
Even in the midst of affluence, success, love—the perfect life—
the hollow Void screams thru the comforting fog. 
In our secret depths, we still feel utterly empty and helpless.

     We might struggle to fill our Existential Void in several ways:
1. Material possessions make our lives more comfortable and happy.
2. Beyond mere earning, we want our lives to accomplish something. 
We seek self-esteem, a feeling of worth thru our occupations. 
3. Love and marriage are also supposed to fulfill us. 
4. Or we might seek long-range fulfillment thru reproduction. 
5. And we might devote considerable time to enjoying ourselves. 
Perhaps we enrich our lives thru travel, reading, education.
The happiness-game might obscure our inner emptiness for awhile,
but even the richest experiences probably will not fill the Void. 
6. Finally, we might attempt spiritual self-fulfillment. 
Thru ritual practices, metaphysical beliefs, & 'spiritual' self-help
we attempt to neutralize our Existential Void by our own efforts. 
Do any of these methods really fill our Existential Void?

     Not that our lives do not include enough things to be done.
We might be overwhelmed by duties and responsibilities,
but if ever we are done, we still feel empty.
Like a mouse running around in an exercise wheel,
we run and run and run, but we get nowhere. 
Life seems pointless and futile; nothing satisfies our deep longing. 
The Void is a hunger that is not filled with eating,
an inward question not satisfied with words. 

     We might discover our Existential Emptiness
when our basic life-purposes and fundamental world-views collapse.
We feel our Existential Malaise: emptiness, meaninglessness, desolation.

     We might attempt to fill our Existential Void by collecting things, 
hoping to make up for the substance being eaten away from inside.
But the gnawing internal 'nothing' gains strength as it devours us.
The more the Void eats, the faster it chews. 

     If we construct our lives without taking the Void into account,
we build on the sands of illusion; such castles will fall. 



III.  EXISTENTIAL FULFILLMENT

    Only when we have truly confronted our Existential Void,
when we no longer believe all feelings of emptiness
can be filled by possessions, achievement, marriage, children, etc.
—only when we feel our total, uncaused, permanent, comprehensive Void
are we impelled to begin our quest for release. 

     Once we have separated our Existential Void from our ordinary needs,
we might face another hazard—self-reliance. 
We want to make our way in the world without the help of others. 
So when we confront our Existential Emptiness,
our first inclination is to try to do something about it. 
Later we might simply try to ignore the Void by getting involved
in our self-sufficient, value-affirming, optimistic ways of life. 

    Have we already experienced some false starts?
Have we become lost in blind alleys?
Perhaps up to this point, we have coped with our Existential Dilemma,
trying to 'fill' our haunting emptiness in various ways.
If we have tried to fill our Existential Void with other people,
will that orientation toward relationships have to be reversed?
If we have tried to fulfill ourselves thru our jobs,
will that self-reliant attitude change?



IV.  SUMMARY: FIVE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
       ORDINARY EMPTINESS AND OUR EXISTENTIAL VOID:

      Ordinary Emptiness                      Our Existential Void

1. Specific lack, deficiency,                1. General, free-floating sense
absence, or loss.                                  of utter hollowness. 
                                    
2. Caused by easily-understood       2. No connection with the objective
situations in life.                                    world; an inward nullity.

3. Temporary—until the situation     3. Permanent—no matter what changes
is changed, the need satisfied.         objectively, the nothingness persists.

4. Limited to specific dimensions.    4. A hollowness of our whole being. 

5. Knowing what we lack,                   5. Nothing we can get, achieve,
we know where to seek it.                  or accomplish will fill this Void. 



Questions for Discussion 

1.     For what period of your life did you confuse ordinary emptiness
             with your Existential Void?

2.     What did you use to fill your Void? 

3.     How long were you satisfied with material possessions? 

4.     How did society teach you to seek fulfillment in the wrong places?

5.     Have you tried to fill your Existential Gap with things that don't fit?

6.     Are you now convinced that possessions, achievements, relationships,
             children, adventure, & religion will not fill your Existential Void?

7.     Does the Existential Void explain why people who 'have everything'
             sometimes kill themselves?

8.     Has the collapse of a reason for living disclosed your Existential Void?



   This essay has now become a chapter in Inward Suffering.


AUTHOR:

     James Park is an existential philosopher
and author of five books in existential spirituality,
all of which will be found in the Existential Spirituality Bibliography:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-website-jamesleonardpark---freelibrary-3puxk/B-XSP.html

    Much more information about James Park
will be found on his website:
James Leonard Park—Free Library
Created May 23, 2008; Revised 5-29-2008; 11-12-2010; 6-30-2011; 12-2-2011;
12-21-2012; 11-13-2013; 2-25-2015; 4-10-2015; 2-16-2019; 5-8-2020;

FURTHER READING ON OUR EXISTENTIAL VOID


James Park  Inward Suffering
https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-website-jamesleonardpark---freelibrary-3puxk/INW.html


James Park  Our Existential Predicament:
Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, & Death
(Minneapolis, MN: Existential Books, 2006—5th edition)
Chapter 5 "The Existential Void: Discovering Our Bottomless Emptiness" p. 77-87.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-website-jamesleonardpark---freelibrary-3puxk/XP.html


Read other free books on the Internet.

Go to other on-line essays by James Park,
organized into 10 subject-areas.


Go to the Existential Spirituality index page.

Go to the beginning of this website
James Leonard Park—Free Library