Our Reactions to the Void

We are a three dimensional dynamic continuum of body/mind/spirit. We are a structure of activity. In being we are doing…but what are we doing? In comparison to answering that question, defining the structure of our nature was easy. The labeled facets existed and when I looked at humanity, though the representative shape of our structure was different, I saw body/mind/spirit. Given such an obvious common structure I thought it was a reasonable expectation to see an equally obvious common sense of purpose and resulting common direction. I have watched in awe as huge flocks of small song birds take flight, fly up, down, left, right and land in unison. On film I’ve seen schools of small fish similarly swim and change direction as if one. I thought, if they can do it, we can do it. When I looked at our activity however, at first I saw everyone going more or less in a different direction. The only possible common label for our activity was “That’s life”; but I’ve never found this helpful. Despite the apparent chaos I continued to look at but more usefully listen to the evidence. Eventually what I was hearing coalesced into the conclusion we are all doing precisely the same thing, just differently; and though close up I still saw all of us going in somewhat different directions, from afar I saw what should have been an obvious deduction. We are, without any doubt, moving as one. 1

The idea of calling what we are doing “our reactions to the void” occurred to me while analyzing countless life stories. They were all unique of course and in not one of them did I hear the phrase “reaction to the void”. However, I did hear “void” more often than any other word of significant motivation. It was contained in sentences such as, “The loss of my father, mother, brother, sister, daughter, son… job, possessions…left a void in my life.” An equally common variation was the converse expression that someone or something such as an activity or a religions/philosophy and its activity, “…filled the void in my life…” Synonymous expressions used the words, hole, emptiness, devoid of meaning, lack of purpose, nothing and so on. All these words and phrases pointed to the conclusion there is in our collective knowledge a phenomenon with the English label “the void” we may be aware of trying to fill; we may discover we have been trying to fill; or of which we may be blissfully unaware. 2

In my view the void is simply what we discover when we question the meaning of life. More specifically the void is what we discover when we ask “Why am I?” the question that in the introduction I called “the last why” because it will remain unanswered. To ‘see’ the void I imagine the mental knowledge we can acquire is recorded on a page the edges of which would be the edges of the universe. Right in the center of the ‘page’ is a hole where “the last why” used to be. Although a metaphysical hole in our knowledge, the void is not at all like the physical black hole to which it is often compared. Black holes exist. The void does not exist without asking “the last why”, a fact not lost on preceding generations passing on the most pervasive reaction to the void, “don’t ask!” Black holes have a force from which not even light can escape. The void has no inherent force. Our fear of it gives the void its apparent force; and the disintegrating effect commonly ascribed to it is simply the result of our reactions to the void. 3

Even though by not asking it seems possible to remain blissfully unaware of it, we are nevertheless reacting to the void. To be reacting to the void the question that discovers it only needed to be asked once; and it was asked by one of our ancestors many millennia ago. The historic event likely occurred sometime after another of our ancestors asked the first “why?” which incidentally was eventually answered, becoming our first bit of knowledge. The initial reaction of the person who first asked “the last why” was precisely the same as the reaction s(he) had had to previous physical unknowns. S(he) experienced fear, anxiety, panic, terror and related emotions. S(he) probably also tried to run away, the physical equivalent of “not asking”. However, when s(he) realized there was no escape our ancestor tried another well practiced reaction to physical unknowns. S(he) created a theory to answer the metaphysical unknown and acted accordingly. It was the first theoretical reaction to the void. 4

Had it filled the void we would still be reacting to it according to this first theory; but since it and all subsequent theories failed to fill the void, it and the associated fear of this metaphysical unknown was rediscovered again and again and…. Each time the void was rediscovered an inherited theory was altered somewhat, activity changed accordingly and the reaction shared. The individual who made the rediscovery could have either added theory to or subtracted it from their inherited reaction to the void. Not everyone accepted the new reaction and thus the old one continued to exist. These reactions to the void accumulated over the millennia and were passed from generation to generation. We are living that inheritance today. Though these reactions to the void can vary from the differently named, minutely detailed theoretical world views with prescribed activities to activities without apparent theoretical framework, all our present reactions can be traced to the original discovery of the void. Our history records the consequents of our experiments; and our present is the open end of history. 5

Although our first reaction to it was an attempt to fill the void, and it and all subsequent efforts to fill the void are part of our history, I did not label what we are doing “trying to fill the void” because this reaction is not all of our history or our present. There is also evidence of simply giving up either in reaction to the void or in reaction to the consequences of trying to fill the void. It doesn’t matter which for there is only one way to give up so the result is the same. In addition there is evidence of indirectly reacting to the void by reacting to the consequences of trying to fill it or of giving up. Associated with this reaction are comparative antonyms of words synonymous with “the void”. So for example, rather than “the emptiness” there is evidence that in reaction to this experience we look for a “more fulfilling” reaction. There are other antonyms but for now one is enough to introduce the fact that by following the trail of successively “more fulfilling” we have to arrive at a reaction that is the most fulfilling. From a list of a few words I could have used to label this “most fulfilling” reaction I chose “the ideal”. For reasons that will become obvious I labeled exclusively trying to fill the void “the absolutely restrictive reaction” and labeled exclusively giving up “the absolutely permissive reaction”. 6

When I look at our present history making activities I do not see the ideal, the absolutely restrictive or absolutely permissive reactions for they are not specifically our reactions to the void. They are reactions that define a continuum of possible reactions. The absolutely restrictive and the absolutely permissive reactions are both figuratively and literally the ends of the line so we can’t actually have these reactions and live for any length of time; nevertheless they are definable by deduction. The ideal reaction is midway between the two ends. The ideal is similarly definable and it is theoretically possible for us to have the ideal reaction; but there are collective complications. Each of us has a reaction to the void somewhere on the continuum between the absolutely restrictive reaction and the ideal or between the absolutely permissive reaction and the ideal, which is a blend of the respective ends. The location of our reaction relative to either end of the continuum and the ideal is determined by the ratio of the two components in our individual blend and it is thus simply definable as being more of less like its components. It is because there is this continuum of possible reactions we can have that I called our history making activity “our reaction to the void”. 7

To create the picture of this continuum which contains all our possible reactions to the void, I began by completing the process of isolating from our blends the activity, characteristics and consequences of the component reactions. I had already completely isolated the inactivity of the absolutely permissive reaction because there is nothing more to say about giving up. Identifying exclusively trying to fill the void as its activity was the greatest part of describing the absolutely restrictive reaction. To complete its description I only had to identify and organize the apparently billions of unique ways we try to fill the void. When I finished teasing the ways we try to fill the void from our blends, I used the activity that remained to describe the ideal. I then isolated the characteristics and consequences of the three defining reactions by simply following to the ideal all the comparative expressions such as “more fulfilling”. This is all I needed to do because the absolutely permissive reaction has no characteristics and the characteristics and consequences of the absolutely restrictive reaction have to be for the most part antonymous to the ideal. Although once described, the ideal, absolutely restrictive and absolutely permissive reactions described all the rest, because I used a few words in the descriptions of both the ideal and absolutely restrictive reactions, to complete the description of the rest, where I used the same words in the opposing reactions needed explanation. 8

Our possible individual reactions to the void created the background of my picture on which I overlaid a transparency of our resultant reactions, the result of our interactions. Our reactions to the void are indeed individual but clearly we do not react to the void in isolation. In fact each of us interacts with someone who reacts with someone and so on so that even an interaction between two people becomes a ripple of resultant reactions that eventually reaches the perimeter of humanity. It is also obvious that resultant reactions are created by the interactions of two or more groups of any size that generate ‘tidal waves’ and even ‘tsunamis’. Then finally the interaction of all individuals and groups creates the resultant reaction of humanity. Despite a number of interactions that is likely infinite, describing the possible resultant reactions on the transparency was not much more of a task than describing individual reactions. Except for two related characteristics unique to resultant reactions, those of our resultant reactions and their consequences are the same as those of our reactions; and as with reactions, the description of a few defining resultants defines the rest including all possible resultant reactions of humanity. The overlay of our resultant reactions on the background of our reactions is a complete picture of “our reactions to the void”. 9

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