How I Tried to Catch the Void

hands-on exploration of the forms of emptiness in urban life

Publish something every day, better trice. Hustle. Refresh the newsfeed. Read the news. Keep up. Network. Sell. Refresh. Watch. Buy. Share. For a Westerner of the twenty-first century, nothing is more unsettling than an empty space, than a piece of time and space not chock-full of content — be it a pause in a conversation, a waiting line, or an idea of death.

But the masters of the past civilizations had a different approach to the void.

The ancient masters had a way to play with the void instead of denying its right for existence; they would caress her as a lover with a stroke of a brush, they would worship her as a goddess in days-long meditation practice — and then strangle her to harness her powers.

“Am I worse than the ancient masters?”— I thought, — “I’m going to try and catch the void as well.”

The void is curious. It may belong in foggy landscapes and abandoned monasteries, but sometimes you can spot it in the city, where it seeps through the days, steps lightly, unnoticeable for an unprepared eye.

As a human, the way you catch an ancient, wild, immaterial thing is by giving it a name and a physical shape that make it easy for everyone to put a finger on it.