Emptiness as a human condition is a sense of generalized boredom, social alienation and apathy. Feelings of emptiness often accompany dysthymia, depression, loneliness, anhedonia, despair, or other mental/emotional disorders, including schizoid personality disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and 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.
While Christianity and Western sociologists and psychologists view a state of emptiness as a negative, unwanted condition, in some Eastern philosophies such as Buddhist philosophy and Taoism, emptiness (Śūnyatā) is a realized achievement. Outside of Eastern philosophy, some writers have also suggested that people may use a transitory state of emptiness as a means of liberating themselves for personal growth.
Famous quotes containing the word emptiness:
“Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“How cold the vacancy
When the phantoms are gone and the shaken realist
First sees reality. The mortal no
Has its emptiness and tragic expirations.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendor of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity.”
—Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872)