Waking up in the morning with a void in my heart. Makes it hard to get out of bed. I try to fill the void by checking my notifications. 1 notification. “Your battery has sufficiently charged.” Even if I do get messages, it does no good in filling the void. I check the message but do not reply, not in the mood to send a sincere response. Reluctantly, I get out of bed to sit in meditation. Focus on the breath—it’s a good distraction from the void. But thoughts rise, and I get lost with the frequency of microwave popcorn around three minutes in.
Thoughts that try to fill the void are frequent guests. “What drug should I do today? Caffeine or weed?” “Why not jerk the troubles off?” “I should eat more corn.”
Exciting fantasies come in close second, Me beating up my brother in jiu-jitsu. Having threesomes with friends
No no no. I get back to my breath. I focus on the tip of my nose, feeling the in and out of the breath. 30 minutes. The meditation bell goes off. I feel more awake, concentrated, and acutely aware of the void. Loneliness has got a hold of me.
When I am surrounded by people, I scan around. Maybe somebody here has got the antidote to my condition. I look for girls first; my mind wants the antidote to also be an attractive girl. No, I’m not trying to get laid. It would just be nice to have a visually pleasing experience while filling the void. It’s like going to a cute restaurant—the pleasing decor just adds to the experience of eating food to fill the stomach.
Then, I judge myself: He definitely just wants to get laid.
In desperation, I open myself up to any connection I can get—dudes, kids, bugs, trees, fire. Maybe this little worm can show me the door to freedom. Maybe the movement of this fire can warm my heart. I wonder what exactly I’m looking for. I’ve met several people I enjoy being around, but that doesn’t seem to do the trick. I wake up the next morning feeling the same way as the day before.
Then I reflect on what love is. I felt the aha when I heard Krishnamurti describe love:
Love in which there is no seeking of a result, no wanting something out of it. When you love something, it is not self-fulfillment, therefore there is no disappointment.
I see it clearly now that if I seek to fill the void with a person or a community, I am seeking a certain result. I feel lonely, so I seek connection. This is not love. It is a mere trade, a contract: I make you feel better, so please make me feel better. The “loving” relationship is no different than a JUUL pen. If you fail to get me high, you get disposed of, and I’ll just get a new one.
So I see that my mission in seeking connection externally will be in vain. No matter how attractive the girl is or how long the worm is, they cannot cure my condition, at least not in any sustainable way.
The feeling of disconnectedness that leads to loneliness has been a chronic condition for me. Even when I am with my girlfriend, even when I have really close friends, the homeostasis seems to be the void. I feel at my best when I can observe this state with curiosity, a complex yet interesting puzzle of my existence. I feel at my worst when I feel stuck in the mud with no way out. Usually, I exist somewhere in between the two: Curiosity and Despair.
I have found two ways to face the condition: ones that help me shift the equilibrium towards curiosity, and the other that distracts me from the whole ordeal. No activity is inherently one or the other. For example, reading can be an act of curiosity, or it could be an act of distraction. So can doing drugs, seeing friends, or meditating. It is more about the awareness during the activity.
I am well aware that I can’t keep running from it. I’ll eventually need to catch my breath and face the prevalent and yet mysterious force of the void.
Tomorrow, I will wake up again, on the same bed, and probably with the same void in my heart. My meditation will probably wander the same. I’ll get the same urge to jerk off, eat more corn. So I ask myself, Where do I go from here?