What Is Empty Nothingness?

Humanity is constantly searching for this idea of inner peace. In a modern world of sometimes seemingly endless suffering, how can one interpret this idea of peace into their daily life? The ancient Taoist text, the Daodejing of Laozi, makes many lofty and vague sentiments about how to find piece and rise above inner struggle in order to find an abstract “Way” which will guide one to inner piece. However, this text leaves much to be desired in how one is supposed to find this way amidst a world that is often very painful and bleak. Shane Koyczan’s spoken word poem “Instructions for a Bad Day” focuses less on the idea of finding you way, and more about overcoming current struggles. Life, however, is neither just overcoming struggle, nor just finding your way. It is a constant struggle between rising over pain, and finding inner happiness. These two texts together, though, examine the ways in which one can rise above their struggles into this greater “way” of living. Together, these pieces argue that one can make their own inner peace by accepting that pain is as much a part of living as happiness is, and by allowing these two things to cycle in and out of their lives naturally without fighting against either.

As humans we tend to see the success of a person’s accomplishments rather than how it all began, the struggles that person had to experience to get to where they are in the end. What this quote means is that happiness may appear like happiness to a person on the outside looking in, but in reality you do not have a general idea of what that person had to go through for their happiness. The quote is saying we want happiness, stability, passion, and contentment, but no one wants to struggle and live through misery to get there. The success in the end is dull, but the suffrage and challenges are far more

Sacrificed the truth, beauty and the right to think, happiness and comfort is just indulgent, it is the discomfort brought by the misery, responsibility and the bonding give us the weight of life. The world is full of people who try hard to gain happiness, and we all have at least one time the idea of living in a perfect world, a world without pain, without misery, without getting old and without cancers. We always ignored the importance and the beauty of uncomfortableness, just as a quote in this book said, “Stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand”. After read this book, I started to be more objective at those bad things I used to hate, to understand the significance of art and to be grateful to this imperfect world we are

In Author’s Prayer written by Ilya Kaminsky the speaker talks about the meaning of our lives and what is most important. The speaker is praying, perhaps not to any particular God, or person, but rather to the world, begging for a change. There is a fundamental darkness to the speaker’s words, and while it ends with aspirations of hope, it ultimately sums up the darkest fears, greatest failures and the wildest dreams of the speaker. It is a prayer, but not like any prayer the world has come to know, it is more like a story, a thought about the pain and the pleasure of life.

What a man hopes for is the central tenant to his worldview. That worldview is not only the lens through which one views the world, but the expression through which the world shapes how one views the world. In a way, worldview colors what we see in the world, all the while those same things are shaping that very same worldview into something new and different. Ultimately, where our hope lies always remains central to worldview. This is especially true in our view of the physical dimension. How one views the material world and human bodies in relation to human souls and the afterlife is fundamental to one’s worldview. Plato, the Late Classical Greek philosopher, and Saint Augustine, the Catholic Bishop of the North African city of Hippo, both made their views on the material world and human bodies clear in their writings and dialogues. While Plato’s hope rested in an ethereal bodiless existence, Augustine hoped in the redemption and reconciliation of the body through Christ.

There are certain things that are in the control of the humans, at the same time there are several things, which are not under the human’s control. Thus, to persist a happy life, the humans are required to put an end their desire such that the satisfaction of

“Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.”pg. 14 This is a theme in this story telling us how real happiness lies with something greater such as knowledge rather than stuff bought. The tone of this quote is very serious to help the reader understand what he is talking about.

Here my thoughts stop and will not go any farther. All that meets me, all that floods over me are but feelings--greed of life, love of home, yearning for the blood, intoxication of deliverance." "aside. We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered;--the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into

By biological logic, we human beings will face death sooner or later in our life and death has its very own ways to approach us - a sudden deadly strike, a critical sickness, a tragic accident, a prolonged endurance of brutal treatment, or just an aging biological end. To deal with the prospect of death come different passive or active reactions; some may be scared and anxious to see death, some try to run away from it, and some by their own choice make death come faster. But Viktor Frankl, through his work Man’s Search for Meaning, and Bryan Doyle; in his essay “His Last Game” show us choices to confront the death, bring it to our deepest feelings, meaningful satisfaction. To me, the spirit of the prisoners at deadly concentration camps, Frankl’s Logotherapy theory of “. . . striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.” (99), as well as the calmness of Doyle’s brother on his last ride, like an awaken bell, remind us of how precious life is, how we should find the significance in every act of living, determine to live a meaningful life at any circumstances; hence, when death comes, we can accept it without anxiety nor regrets.

Promising an escape from all the fear and pain; freedom. I once heard that hope kept the living separate from the dead, if so, I am no longer a part of the living. Hope was wrenched from my grasp and shredded like my back as the whip lashed my skin. Each sting branding my body and mind. I was not and am still not strong enough to rebuild the miniscule amount of hope that lay broken at the back of my mind. Hope is more fearful than even them. Hope gives a glimpse of what could be, a deceptive escape from reality, only to drag you deeper into the pits of misery. So I do not and will not hope for a better future. I will simply survive. Not for the false hope for the damp earth beneath my feet, the fresh smell of pine wafting through my nose or the breeze gently embracing my black and orange body. But for the remainder of my pride which lay safely locked away from them. I will not give them the satisfaction of controlling both my life and

“Humankind has been sustained not merely by its intelligence, but by its capacity to hope.”

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

Our ability to prosper and be content is totally needy upon our own characters, how we arrange ourselves to ourselves, to others, and to occasions by and large (Dobbin, 2008). What qualities our characters come to have is totally up to us. Subsequently, how well we prosper is likewise altogether up to us. In addition, he says that we can only achieve this by identifying those things that are within our power as well as those that are not within our power. What is in our power, then, is the 'power over ourselves' that we have with respect to our ability to judge what is great and what is abhorrent. Outside our energy are 'external things', which are "detached" as for being great or malicious. These indifferents, number those things that are expectedly regarded to be great and those that are traditionally esteemed to be awful. Generally, they are things that 'simply happen', and they are not in our energy as in we don't have outright control to make them happen pretty much as we wish, or to make them have precisely the results that we fancy (Dobbin, 2008). We an therefore only achieve happiness by adjusting our attitude towards life. Learning to love what we get even when it's not what we wanted in the first place helps us prevent frustration in

"Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss" (Dumas 531).

Augustine's explanation regarding signs is something I have noticed myself and others use from time to time. It seems that images can provide just as much knowledge as words and definitions do. I would go as far as to state that this could be how a visual learner see's the world. Through pictures and examples that is. Does this make sense? Augustine and Adeodatus’ conversation also caught my attention as it is a problem that intrigues me. This is the idea of "nothing". This is not a concept that I claim to have sufficient knowledge in however, it seems to be a contradiction because how can one know of something that is really nothing in the first place? Perhaps you can offer some insight regarding this little dilemma. It really makes you think