It seems that our greatest blessing as human beings is our greatest curse, self-awareness. We all in one way or another seem to find life difficult, perplexing, oppressive and somewhat empty. Even when life is going well for us we still hold doubt, we our afraid that it won’t keep on going that way. Depending on our personal life’s we each have very mixed feelings about this life we lead. If someone was to be told that their life was whole, complete, already perfect just as it is they would look at the person as if they were crazy. Because nobody believes that their life is perfect, maybe subconsciously they don't believe their worth a perfect life. But yet there is a feeling of boundless, limitless within each of us. We our a walking contradiction, on one hand we find life to be a perplex empty puzzle which causes us lots of distress but yet at times we our aware of the endless possibilities and joys life as to offer. Because of this internal fight we begin looking for an answer to the puzzle , to the meaning or meaningless of our life’s.
The first way many of us seek to solve this puzzle , is by looking to for a solution outside ourselves. At first this may be on a very superficial level. Many people in society feel that if only they were “cooler” ,or had lots of money, or a better home, or went on more vacations, or had kinder friends, and bosses and lovers, etc their life’s would magically be perfect , it would all work. But slowly we all wear out our “if only lines”.If only I had this , or that, then everything would make sense, everything would be right. Then its seem like we all get to a point were we search for this solution on a more “real” level, still looking for outside things to validate our own lives, and fill in our void, hoping ones again its going to complete us. Still failing to see that they still bring the same “if only” to this new solution, they would be happy.
It seems that our whole life’s our spent looking outside ourselves for an object or feeling. But if you take somebody that already feels limited , and then try to find something outside to make it feel whole , that something being an object or feeling that is just as limited ,you just end up with more of the same that has made you miserable in the first place. But we still continue try to heal this void by using broken outside bandages, knowing very well that it still won't be healed. We run our whole life’s trying to avoid all that hurt and displeasement, we run from emptiness while trying to fill it at the same time. By doing this we remain separate from our own life’s, looking at it, judging it, analyzing it but not truly living it. Underneath our nice, friendly , "cool mask's" there is a great unease, a unease of fear, pain, and anxiety. These two identities our both authentic but one is used as a mask to cover thee other. We over-drink, over-chill, overeat, overwork, make crude jokes, act fake all to cover-up our own emptiness and insecurities. But once we begin to get a glimmer that the answerer's to the problems in our own life’s our not outside ourselves, but that in fact we hold the answers and meanings of our life we will see that the void we so desperately try to feel can get smaller and smaller and even sometimes become just another dust in the wind. Many philosophers and psychiatrist disagree with me on this last point. Many believe that this void can only be covered but never filled.
I disagree because like I said earlier self-awareness might be our greatest curse but its also our greatest blessing. In self-awareness we learn who we our and who we want to be ,then we live our life’s as such. And I believe that in living our life’s to the fullest capability we forget about the emptiness and in forgetting about the emptiness we in fact fill the void because it just doesn't matter. We begin to live our life’s in happiness, taking the joys and sadness as it comes knowing that tho we might not have all the answers we seek, its alright because were alright, were alright to feel empty.I would like to end with a question slash idea, there are two kinds of coal that show up in a coal bin. One is called the anthracite or hard coal, and the other is lignite or soft coal. There is a difference in the way these two kinds of coal burn. Anthracite burns cleanly, leaving little ash. Lignite leaves lots of ash when burned .I ask the coal being a representation of the way to live our own life's, what kind of coal do you want to be ? what kind of coal is the right way to live? what kind of coal feels the void inside ?
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