Exist Within Absence.

"It's the hurt I hide that fuels the fire inside me.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged."
-Ray LaMontagne

Empty is a curious adjective.

Abandoned. Barren. Dead. Desolate. Hollow. Lacking. Void. We've all experienced the stinging soulful penetration that comes with being completely and utterly drained of substance. When you're empty, it is as if each step you take threatens to shatter the thin hollow frame holding what's left of you together. Even the ritualistic act of breathing becomes labored, forced. It's hard to let out even something as simple as air when it seems as if that's all you have left inside of you.

But why is the absence of something always a necessary evil? Why not a necessary good for future completeness? It seems wrong for emptiness to be only associated with the hurt that oftentimes comes with it. Vacant. Bare. Blank. Open. Wanting. Such is what emptiness could imply. The act of emptying is to remove, to purge. How can there be room for better things to come if our beings are cluttered with a pretense of complacency.

"We cannot let another person into our hearts or minds unless we empty ourselves. We can truly listen to him or truly hear her only out of emptiness."

To me, emptiness does not always signify fragility. Vulnerablity, maybe. However, not frailness. There is a certain empowerment that comes with it. Nothing to lose and everything to gain.

“Absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it; the one brings fuel, the other blows it till it burns clear.”
-William Shakespeare

Like a freshly gessoed canvas free from the burden of built up dust and grime. The colors always seem brighter if splashed on anew, untainted by past streaks of forgotten hues. Empty is full. That's the point that most people miss. Afterall, life itself is a contradiction.

"There was emptiness more profound than the void between the stars, for which there was no here and there and before and after, and yet out of that void the entire plenum of existence sprang forth."

Approach emptiness with the same eagerness one approaches fulfillment. Emptiness embraces much more than mere self pity. Look beyond the absence into the possibility of what is soon to fill it.