I’m finding that I have a very complex relationship with emptiness. It’s an important, and inescapable, concept; yet, like many profound things, it’s subtle. I’ve found 2 types of emptiness: the vacuum, and openness. They aren’t easy to distinguish, and I’m frankly not sure which one is more intimidating. The vacuum is laziness, selfishness; it is drifting, letting one’s self slide along the path of least resistance. It feels good to coast for a while, but eventually I find myself being swallowed up in this nothingness.
This emptiness is abject passivity, because it’s easy. It takes no struggle, requires no action on my part. Just maintain.
It’s insidious, this vacuum; just like the Nothing in The Neverending Story, it is consuming. It asks only that I yield to myself; from there, I can slip into that gaping, massive black hole of self-interest.
I’ve spent a great deal of time in that vacuous emptiness; reflecting on my life, I can see that, especially in college and while I travelled afterwards, I was casting about the world, using my own whims as my only compass. And while I did lots of wonderful things during those years, I also began focusing more on myself than others, and now I can see that I’ve hurt some people because of that. There are friends who felt that distance; because I was only interested in passing fancies, I paradoxically became more withdrawn, and emotionally unavailable.
The counter, the opposite form of emptiness, is openness. That’s being open to other people, to the world, to surprises; to things outside my control. While this involves a measure of passivity, it is also a very active sort of emptiness; in order to let people into my heart and into my life, I have to clear some space. I have to practice active listening, and really processing what people say, to try and empathize, and to be really present when someone is speaking to me.
Being married to Aubrey has been a wonderful experience, but the first few months were a much more difficult transition than I’d anticipated. Even though we spent most of our free time together when we were dating/engaged, living together opened up a whole new level of intimacy and vulnerability. We really struggled to accommodate each other’s passions and hobbies; I felt guilty any time I went out alone, or to hang out with my guy friends; I always felt like I was abandoning Aubrey somehow.
What I finally realized was that we were two people, each with full and busy lives, suddenly trying to cram those 2 lives into a single marriage. And not everything would fit. I knew marriage involved compromise, but that had always been a concept; it never occurred to me that I’d need to give up a night reading sometimes to spend time talking and working on our relationship. I didn’t really realize that I might not get to watch quite as many horror movies as I liked, or listen to heavy metal whenever I wanted. I wasn’t being asked to give those things up entirely, just occasionally. Sometimes I need to sit quietly and read, or write, or go for a bike ride. But sometimes I need to put down my pen and spend quality time with my wife. And it’s always such a grace when I choose to do that.
As a specific example: about a year ago I was really focusing on my writing, and was keeping some pretty late hours; I knew that Aubrey preferred to go to bed at the same time, but she understood how important my writing is, so she never complained. But one night, while I was writing, she came to say goodnight to me, and I could see a touch of loneliness in her eyes. So I decided to stop writing for 5 minutes, to go and put her to bed; it gave us a few minutes to connect, to say a good-night prayer, and end our days together. And every night since then, whatever I’m doing, if she’s going to bed before me, I take those few minutes to put my task aside. I lay down with her, and we pray together, and bless each other, and say a focused good-night. I’m so glad I chose to start doing that.
It’s not always easy. There have been plenty of times when I’ve felt like I’m in a “flow”, and I feel like I’d rather keep writing. But at the end of the day, my relationship with her is more important than whatever I might be writing, so I make the choice. I know I’m not always 100% present, but I’m trying. I certainly hope she knows that. But those 5 to 10 minutes where I step away from what I’m doing, I’m stepping in to that emptiness. And I feel myself a better man for it.
Being a philosophical type, there has of course been a shift in my concepts of the world as it is, that have accompanied this slow growth in me. I’ve come to have a different view of heaven than I did when I was a child. Those of you who are not religious (and perhaps some who are religious) may find it hard to comprehend how my conception of a nebulous afterlife could impact the way I relate to others. But you see, when I was a child, I thought of heaven like Chuck E. Cheese, but without tokens or tickets: all play, all the things I liked, and without any sort of cost. I thought that once I’d made it to heaven, there’d be no more work. Without realizing it, I was imagining heaven as a vacuum.
A friend of mine, an ex-cop, once told me that, while driving, if you stare at an obstruction in the road, even if you don’t want to hit it, you will hit it so long as you’re looking at it. So if there’s a tree branch fallen in the lane, in order to avoid it, make sure you’re looking at the road surrounding the branch, because if all you focus on is the branch, you’re gonna hit it. And I think that’s how I function, broadly speaking. Since I’m working to be a good and moral person, to become the sort of man who would fit in in heaven, my actions and attitudes are shaped by what I imagine heaven to be like. So, when I was thinking of heaven as a place where I could kick back and let someone else do the work, I was subconsciously reinforcing that passivity in my life. While I wasn’t trying to kill anybody, I was essentially living by that stupid old saying, “kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out.” I wanted to pass the cosmic buck, so to speak.
But then (with the help of a German philosopher named Josef Pieper) I came to believe that heaven, rather than being a place where souls lounge around all day, is rather a place where people fill their time with the best sort of activity: discussion, reading, running, swimming in the ocean, good meals (both cooking and eating, of course), and so on. I know it may seem silly to think of heaven as having a kitchen; but the Christian God became a man and, during his time on earth, spent a surprising amount of time preparing, talking about, and eating, food. The real sea change here is that work, an active life, aren’t punishment meted out to fallen humanity; rather, the best kinds of work are a participation in the ongoing act of creation, in which we are invited to work alongside the Creator.
So for me, one of my chief temptations is to laziness; I’m often drawn to slip into that easy abyss. But it’s the work that I’m calledto, and it’s also what’s brought so much more meaning to my life. When I come home from a hard day at work and Aubrey comes rushing up to me to kiss me and sing her “Hubby’s Home” song, I’m so immensely glad for the work of relationship. I’m glad for the little sacrifices I make to create empty spaces for her, and for the Creator, and for other friends. So if you’re ever feeling like I’m too busy to be your friend, call me out on it.
A Postscript:
I wanted to share with you a favorite quote of mine, that sticks in my mind and helps to stir me out of my laziness. It’s from the prologue to Goethe’s Faust. The prologue takes place in heaven, and God is talking to his angels, receiving reports of how things are on earth. And the angels are a bit wheedling, except for the trickster, Mephistopheles. He says to God that mankind is flighty and haughty, not knowing their proper place in the world. He subtly mocks the other angels by contradicting their rose-colored reports, and speaks quite ill of the state of the earth. So he proposes a wager to God, to prove his point, that humans are easily swayed from their principles; Mephistopheles wants permission to tempt a holy man. And God agrees, giving the following little speech:
I have never hated the like of you [Mephistopheles]. Of all the spirits that deny, the scoffer is the least offensive to me. Man’s activity is all too prone to slumber; he soon gets fond of unconditional repose; I am therefore glad to give him a companion, who stirs and works, and must, as devil, be doing.