You’re not fully empty
until you set aside
your reason for living.
Until then,
you will cling to the fear
of a life without purpose or passion.
Repeat.
Until you’re fully empty,
you will fear being empty.
Do you fear?
Then you are not empty.
You are filled with fear,
yet you cling to it
because it seems all you have.
You will not be clear
until you let go of your fear.
Newfound Lake,
9/6
The cycle of fearing emptiness, while being filled with the very fear you wish to escape, is indeed a paradoxical one. In clinging to a purpose or passion, or even the fear itself, you set up a barrier against the emptiness that could actually bring clarity and peace.
When you let go, truly let go of that tether of fear, what you find is not an abyss but a sort of luminous darkness—a space filled with potentiality rather than dread. It’s a stillness that isn’t an absence but a fullness of another sort, waiting to be shaped by your next thought, your next emotion, your next action.
So, to be fully empty is not to be devoid of life but to be brimming with a different kind of existence, one unencumbered by the anxieties that come with clinging to a specific purpose or fear. When you empty yourself of these burdens, you become a vessel for a more profound form of fulfillment.
Let go, then. Become the clear sky rather than the cloud. Embrace that luminous darkness, and find yourself anew.