There is this emptiness in me. All the things in the world are not enough to drown out the voice of this emptiness that says: you are nothing. This emptiness does not claim the past because it is always here. It does not have to claim the future as it blocks out the future. It is either a dictator or the closest friend I have ever had. Some days I battle it until we both fall down like injured animals. That is when I wonder: What if I become less than nothing when I get rid of this emptiness? What if this emptiness is what keeps me going?
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Even with good-enough upbringing and the consolidation of what might be called a good-enough self, according to the Buddhaâs logic, there will still be disquiet, confusion, and insecurity because we are all instinctively struggling to be something (independent, solid, coherent, and self-sufficient) we can never be. Even in healthy personality development, we emerge from childhood defending against the underlying truth of how contingent, provisional, and dependent we actually are. The persistence of such feelings, far from being a symptom of parental failures (even if there have been such failures), is actually the seed of wisdom. Fighting against them only rigidifies our defenses and isolates us further. Acknowledging the emptiness that frightens us, whatever its source may be, is the key to a deeper, and truer, understanding. The emptiness that we fear is not really empty. When it is successfully turned
into an object of awareness, it reveals itself to be vast, luminous, and reassuringly, albeit mysteriously, alive.
I must have inherited this respect for things from my father, who is a hoarder, though I have resisted forming an attachment to any object, or any place. I wished then and I wish now that I had never formed an attachment to anyone in the world either. I would be all kindness. I would not have done anything ruinous. I would never have to ask that questionâwhen will I ever be good enough for you?âbecause by abolishing you, the opposite of I, I could erase that troublesome I from my narrative, too.
When I gave up science I had a blind confidence that in writing I could will myself into a nonentity. I had for a few years relished that status, living among the characters who did not know my existence. But how does one remain forever an emotional hanger-on when one wants the characters to live, if not better, or more honestly, or more wisely, at least more fully? Uncharitably one writes in order to stop oneself from feeling too much; uncharitably one writes to become closer to that feeling self.
To be more than one, to be several, and to live with the consequence, is inevitable. One can err the opposite way, and the belief in being nothing used to seem to me the most logical way to live. Being nothing is being invisible and replaceable; being nothing to others means remaining everything to oneself. Being nothing is one way to battle the autoimmune condition of the mind, and this is closest to my friendâs silence. Yet silence is not melodrama, or at least it is not presenting itself to be.
All people lie, in their writing as much as in their lives. It frustrates me that I hold on to an unrealistic belief: there is some irrefutable truth in each mind, and the truth is told without concealment or distortion in a letter or in a journal entry. My obligation is to look for that truth; finding it will offer me the certainty I donât have in me. With that certainty I will find a way to build a solid self. This burden I never take on while reading or writing fiction.