The Fear Of Emptiness

Most people I meet are afraid of minimalism.

They think it’s an interesting idea, and they like to discuss it at great length, but when it comes to getting rid of clutter they stop dead in their tracks.

They can’t imagine living out of a backpack, because they think they need their house, their car, their television and all their clothes and gadgets.

Most people react roughly the same way when it comes to meditation.

They think it’s an intriguing concept, and they like to discuss the benefits associated with it at great length, but when it comes to sitting down in an empty room with nothing but their own thoughts to keep them company, they’ll pass, thank you very much.

Now what do meditation and minimalism have in common?

They are both about stripping away the excess and getting down to the most basic questions.

Who am I? What do I need to be happy? What is essential?

Filler

Most people, when faced with empty space, want to fill up that space with objects, because it looks boring. And when faced with silence, they want to fill it up with sounds, mental chatter or music, because silence, to them, is boring.

Why do people do this?

Because emptiness outside themselves reminds them of the emptiness inside themselves.

Most people are not fulfilled on very basic levels. They feel they lack love, happiness, security or excitement.

So they seek solace in entertainment.

Entertainment is filler. It can be amazingly beautiful, thought-provoking and well-constructed, but it’s still filler.

We use it to dull that fear of emptiness.

But I’ll let you in on a little secret.

There’s no such thing as emptiness

Let that sink in.

There’s no such thing as emptiness.

And yet it’s everywhere. It surrounds us, envelopes us and runs through us.

But emptiness is never actually empty. It’s full of potential, full of deep, subtle sensations, thoughts and feelings.

Emptiness is the perfect canvas for everything to appear on.

You see, there is a common misconception going around, and there’s a very poetic way of describing it.

The blank page.

In the writer’s world there is nothing as scary as a blank page. It haunted the nightmares of the world’s greatest novelists and playwrights.

It forms the basis for the so-called writer’s block.

And yet, what are we afraid of?

The page itself does nothing, it forms no threat whatsoever.

Every morning I’m faced with a blank page–or rather, an empty document on my screen–and every morning I write something.

Because the page isn’t hiding the story from me. The emptiness of it is not a vacuum sucking creativity away into some hidden dimension.

The words come from my own emptiness.

The emptiness outside is not a threat, and neither is the emptiness inside.

It is, in fact, the source of everything, and the more you cultivate your relationship with this emptiness and overcome your fear, the more you’ll find yourself inspired.

And the more you’ll find yourself happy, loved, secure and excited.

This article was originally posted on contradictorian.com