A few nights ago I found myself sitting at my desk with this vague sense of discomfort and uncertainty.

I’d made some progress that day on a blog post I’d been writing and rewriting for a few weeks now. The progress was good. But I also felt like I had pages of notes and drafts and rewrites scattered all over the floor, and all I was doing was adding new notes and new drafts to the pile. I had no clue how or when it would all come together; there seemed to be no end in sight, and that was frustrating.¹

I was also recovering from my second bout with COVID, contracted at the tail end of 2 weeks of being away from home, so I was congested, cough-y, grumpy, uncomfortable, and also antsy – I wanted to be healthy again so I could get out of my room, move about, get groceries, and just return to regular life already. (Which coincidentally also meant I could get back to fully working on this blog post I wanted to be done with already!)

It was out of this cocktail of frustration that I had my latest encounter with what I’ve been calling The Emptiness.

The meetings are rare, and I usually forget about the experience by the next day or two. But in the moment it’s like a pit in my stomach, that somehow feels like it’s always existed but has just been hiding, reveals itself and takes weight. It’s this feeling of: “I’m not satisfied with what I’ve done today. I want more. More of what, I don’t know. But there’s gotta be something else I can do that will fill this empty feeling.”

I can’t just shake it off, so I’ll try a bunch of external treatments. Maybe eating something tasty will make me feel good, so I go snack on some chips. Or maybe watching a TV show/anime with good vibes will give me that jumpstart I need.

This time around The Emptiness showed up at like 7PM, so it was too early to turn in for bed (usually after a good night’s sleep the feeling is gone the next morning). I was slightly annoyed too – I was already on sabbatical, doing fun projects and things I wanted to do. Why was I still feeling this way? (Also frustratingly: as I’m writing this post, I don’t even remember how it went away, just that it did. Slippery bugger.)

Do other people experience this too? Is this normal? Does this come from a desire to do more, be more? To make something great (before we die)? Or am I just spouting rationalizations, in an attempt to put a name to some deep-rooted unresolved emotional thing?

“Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” - Burr, Hamilton (2015)

An explanation, maybe

The closest thing I’ve found to an explanation for The Emptiness, and more importantly where it comes from, is this Dr. K chat. I’m not entirely sure if what he’s saying is Exactly How It Is, but it resonated with me and mirrors my experience.

To try to recap the idea in my own words:

• I picture my esteem as a box

• I can increase the size of the box through gaining confidence via competence (e.g. by trying new things, developing skills, improving physique, job, money, status, achievements). This is your regular fall-down-and-get-back-up kind of character growth

• The Emptiness, however, is like its own room inside the box. And increasing the size of the box doesn’t do anything to reduce the existence of the room. It’s still there, leaking out these feelings of dissatisfaction, lack of fulfillment, lack of security

• Q: What is inside this room, where do the insecurity and hunger come from?
  A: Likely an emotional wound, likely from childhood

• For me, I think my kid-brain learned that a lot of worth comes from recognition: of intelligence, of accomplishments and achievements, of potential and potential realized

• The Emptiness apparently comes from that part of my brain that still believes that “recognition = worth” and is maybe always looking out for that next hit of recognition. For other people the source could be something different, but the key is that the thing that gives the sense of worth is External

• Emotional wounds require emotional healing. In this case: being shown and fully accepting/believing that you have worth apart from your achievements

• How does that happen?

  • The first step: Awareness of the emotional wound and when it might be the source of some of my thoughts, recognizing that that corner of my esteem might reject the idea that I have worth apart from my achievements
  • The next step: idk, apparently it’s one of those things that will reveal itself in time, but gaining awareness is enough to get you started on the path

I’m probably skipping over a lot of useful connective tissue here, and I’m definitely skipping over the examples and exercises that Dr. K does with Dantes that really help drive home his points. But if any of this resonates with you or intrigues you, I suggest watching the entire interview, it’s so good.²

If you’ve had similar experiences feeling this kind of Emptiness, I’d love to chat and exchange notes! Shoot me an email at [email protected] or DM me on Twitter.

P.S.: This is just one component of The Thing I’ve been processing and trying to write about for the past few weeks now. Kind of like the appetizer of the meal. As for the main course, here’s a little teaser: what if I thought my sabbatical was about finding a new career, but I was actually grasping at trying to fill The Emptiness this entire time? (Edit: here it is!)

Further reading / footnotes