One we have whether we like it or not; the other is the great enforcer that protects us. Emptiness we have in abundance and without authenticity we have no recourse to joy.
Two great truths reside in this: emptiness is inherent to the human condition and authenticity is the great escape.
Symptoms and Signs of Emptiness
If ever we feel empty, and it’s granted we will, there are evidentiary proofs that command a hearing.
The signs and symptoms revealing us spiritually disconsolate and perhaps numb vary from person to person. Some of us seek solace in friends, via interaction, to skirt being alone. Others need to be alone to process their emptiness. Others again distract themselves; anything but boredom! Still again, many others make comparisons, and envy breeds silently within the spirits of all of us if left untethered.
Whatever the signs and symptoms—those that others see or only we feel—isn’t really important. What is truly important, however, is how we manage to authentically challenge ourselves in our emptiness.
People vary in the experience and manifestation of emptiness. One thing is clear: no one is beyond it.
The Great Combatant
Being or becoming authentic in our emptiness is neither beating it nor denying it. It’s just a matter of sitting with it; becoming perfectly comfortable that feeling empty is okay.
This is why it’s a great combatant. What doesn’t need to fight, and merely accepts, is bigger and stronger and more powerful and more mature to boot. Authenticity is the courage to ‘be’ without competition encroaching; without temptations to comparison; without feelings of inferiority. Authenticity is stillness, as it is, happy and content.
What doesn’t need to compete or compare or feel inferior is sound, ideally confident, and realistic, even in the midst of inner turmoil for reasons known or for no reason at all.
Friends, Not Foes
Authenticity and emptiness coexist because the former is friend to all, whilst the latter needs all the friends it can get. Of course they go together!
As accompaniments for each other the emptiness within one person is harmonised and they become better for others, too. Authentic people are nice to be around, especially when there is no veneer to cover their emptiness. They, therefore, give others permission to feel authentically empty as well.
As love will settle fear, making it stronger, so too will authenticity validate, and possibly even alleviate, feelings of emptiness. It massages our mood and opens the drapes of the soul to joy.
© 2011 S. J. Wickham.
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