Ever thought we were born with an empty space?  It’s like a slides puzzle game that has a square missing.  To solve the puzzle you move the squares around; to form a picture.  The missing square is deliberate and it’s the only way to manipulate and get the squares in the desired order.  However, one cannot ignore the obvious fact that even though the picture is completed, a square is missing and there remains an empty space.

Often, I feel like there is an empty space inside me, an emptiness that does not fill up even when things are the best.  At times, this emptiness seems to swell and feel bigger and almost overwhelming.  I have shared this with friends who also identify with the feeling.  Standing back, I wonder if the busyness in our lives is our way of filling the empty space.   Maybe if we set progressive goals we will feel less of the emptiness, or maybe if we are self-actualized we will eliminate the empty space. 
There is mention of psychic empty space where we fill a perceived void with material things, complex relationships, work and extreme leisure activities.  The thinking is that if we are in constant motion, we will close the space.

But what if like the slide puzzle game, our empty space is deliberate?  What if our empty space is part of our creation and we are meant to live our lives sliding the squares into new patterns, finding new solutions and new order?  Perhaps we struggle for perfection when perfection was never the plan.  Indeed, there is something to be said about yearning for something we have never had in the first place.

Artists and musicians have given value to the empty space and silence that is ever present.  John Hart captures this in his quote “Art, after all, is traditionally displayed against vacancies: paintings on dun walls, sculptures in empty spaces, music in quiet halls.  “Do we live our lives more gloriously and feel our emotions more sharply because of the interplay of our feelings of fullness and emptiness? What value should we be placing on our feelings of emptiness or our internal empty space?