Emptiness
1 Comments Published by ThinkaGeek on Sunday, November 09, 2008 at Sunday, November 09, 2008.
Emptiness as a human condition of generalized boredom, social alienation and apathy. Feelings of emptiness often accompany dysthymia,[1] depression, loneliness, despair, or other mental/emotional disorders such as borderline personality disorder. A sense of emptiness is also part of a natural process of grief, as resulting of separation, death of a loved one, or other significant changes. However, the "particular meanings of “emptiness” vary with the particular context and the religious or cultural tradition in which it is used".
So called "emptiness" is a natural cycle, I'm afraid. Everything in life that gives you meaning will either intermittently or eventually bring emptiness. ("Every hero becomes a bore," George Bernard Shaw said.) For me, this isn't pessimism or cynicism; It's reality. Not to sound too new age-y, but this is the consequences of materiality. (If we could unplug ourselves from the ego--and I'd love to meet the person who can--we'd never have to feel emptiness. The human price of having a big brain.)
Perhaps this is all obvious, but we hear so many describe much of emotional "suffering" as a kind of disorder or anomally. And now as we approach the holiday season, if such were only true... (It's been argued that for a combat soldier to suffer from PTSD is not only the appropriate response to the experience, it's an inevitable one.)
I'm no Buddhist, but Buddhists seemed to have understood this 2500 years ago. C'est la vie, no?