Rob Brezsny writes: U2’s singer Bono, says that all of us suffer from the sense that something’s missing from our lives. We imagine that we lack an essential quality or experience, and its absence makes us feel sad and insufficient. French philosopher Blaise Pascal referred to this emptiness as “a God-shaped hole.” Bono adds that “you can never completely fill that hole,” but you may find partial fixes through love and sex, creative expression, family, meaningful work, parenting, activism, and spiritual devotion. I bring this to your attention, because I have a strong suspicion that in the coming weeks you will have more power to fill your God-shaped hole than you’ve had in a long time.

If you look at Bono’s take on the human condition, that we are designed to be forever somewhat unfulfilled, to experience a gnawing black hole in our insides, what Bono calls the “god-shaped hole” a 3% truth value statement… then, muscle test says, the truth part is that some things provide temporary relief, reprieve from the feeling of that emptiness, but it is his list that is flawed… not the idea: him including meaningful work, for example, don’t belong to the list. Neither does creative expression… the rest: it depends on you. Parenting could fulfill you, but often you don’t know what the heck you are doing, so it leaves the hole unfilled.

The idea that this hole is part and parcel with being human is valid empirically, and it also makes sense that a physically weak species can only survive if they have this desire to be more, to know more. Continue reading “The god shape hole that keeps you wanting…”