God Shaped Hole

this pursuit is made even more aimless by the intentional search for it.

"Paraphrasing Blaise Pascal: there’s a vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. An infinite abyss. He theorized the concept of the god-shaped hole. The belief that every human yearns for something transcendent."

- an extract from 'nothing to prove' by nicole

hello! 👋🏻

i feel like typing in lowercase today, so excuse the inconsistency.

that extract from nicole's piece (excellent newsletter by the way, definitely recommend signing up) makes me zoom out a bit and think about how the entirety of life is an attempt at filling this god-shaped hole within ourselves.

imagine that for a second; being blessed with life but with a deep hole within yourself, and then spending the entirety of life itself trying to fill up that deep hole.

i don't mean that in the negative sense, to the contrary; i think it's true & relatable.

i feel like the larger problem here is that most people (including myself) have barely scratched the surface of what the void could possibly be filled with. most people I know are in constant pursuit of trying to figure out that “thing” that'll help them feel purpose-led in a world filled with a million possible purposes.

this also connects to my current read (“The Freedom Manifesto” by Karan Bajaj). in the first few chapters, he talks about the concept of dharma. an oversimplified definition of dharma would essentially be “a person's purpose in life”.

this, perhaps aimless, pursuit is made even more aimless by the intentional search for it. i think the closest anyone can hope to fill the void is through true curiosity, and an undying natural need to try more things.

i was posed with a question lately, “what is one personal goal you have for yourself, in the long term?”. it was embarrassingly hard to even attempt to half-ass an answer. my hope would be that five years later, i have a more concrete answer for how i'd like to spend my life.

do yourself a favour and go listen to any song by 'Message of Bears' - don't thank me.

love, sif.