Lecture
Anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness is a typical existential anxiety state connected with the feeling that life is devoid of meaning or empty. A person may experience such emotions when they begin to ask themselves questions about the meaning of life, its goals and values. Here are some characteristics of this anxiety:
Feeling of uselessness: A person may feel that their life has no significance, or that their activity brings no benefit whatsoever. This can give rise to a feeling of uselessness and alienation from the surrounding world.
Sense of emptiness: This anxiety may be accompanied by a sense of emptiness and a lack of content in life. A person may ask themselves questions about what has meaning, and feel that they cannot find satisfactory answers.
Doubts about values: A person may begin to doubt their own values, beliefs, and priorities, which can give rise to inner struggle and anxiety.
Spiritual crisis: The anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness can become part of a spiritual crisis, when a person seeks a spiritual or philosophical understanding of the meaning of life.
Coping with the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness can be a complex and individual process. Here are several ways of coping with these emotions:
Search for meaning: Explore your values, beliefs, and interests in order to find what truly matters to you. This may involve reflection, self-exploration, and discussion with those close to you.
Setting goals: Establish specific goals and objectives for yourself. This can help give life meaning and direction.
Spiritual practice: For many people, spiritual practices such as meditation, yoga, or prayer can help attain a deeper understanding and sense of meaning.
Support: Talk with close friends, family, or a psychologist about your emotions and experiences. Sometimes simply talking can help find ways of coping with the anxiety.
Art and creativity: Many people find meaning and satisfaction in art and the creative process. Try different forms of expression, such as painting, music, writing, or sculpture.
An ever-growing number of people are overtaken by a feeling of aimlessness and emptiness, or, as V. Frankl termed this condition — the existential vacuum. The founder of the third Viennese school, V. Frankl argues that in times such as ours, in times of the existential vacuum, the primary task of education does not consist in being content with the transmission of traditions and knowledge, but in cultivating the capacity that gives a person the possibility of finding those unique meanings that remain untouched by the disintegration of universal values. This human capacity to find the meaning contained in unique situations is conscience. Spiritual self-affirmation is life according to the laws of creativity. Within creativity two levels can be distinguished: the Level of creation (A) and the Level of participation in creation (B). To take part in creativity of type “B” means possessing the capacity for meaningful participation in others' creations. The possibility of participation in creativity (level B) was aphoristically expressed by the Russian poet Afanasy Fet. “Do you, you see, perceive, or sense in the world what Phidias, Shakespeare, Beethoven perceived or sensed in it? “No.” Then go your way? You are not Phidias, not Shakespeare, not Beethoven, but thank God even for this, if you are 45 granted at least to perceive the beauty which they overheard and glimpsed in nature on your behalf.” This capacity to perceive the beauty which Phidias, Shakespeare, and Beethoven overheard and glimpsed on your behalf means living within meanings, affirming oneself as an active participant in these meanings. One more important element of creation (A) and co-creation (B) is opposition in relation to the content of one's own culture. The experiencing of creation and co-creation — the conditions for taking spiritual life seriously — is the ultimate task of the human being.
If a person's life lacks such an experience, then it is threatened by that very same non-being, in two forms — emptiness and the absence of meaning. Non-being threatens the person, threatens their spiritual self-affirmation. Spiritual self-affirmation means nothing other than life according to the laws of creativity. A person lives creatively — and therefore affirms themselves spiritually. The anxiety of “meaninglessness” is the loss of ultimate concern, the loss of meaning to all meanings. A person cannot answer for themselves the question: “What is the meaning of my existence?” The loss of an answer to this question is the threat of the anxiety of “meaninglessness.” “Man's Search for Meaning” is the uniquely human form of his existence. The form of this path is spiritual self-affirmation through creativity. The anxiety of emptiness is caused by the threat non-being poses to a particular content of spiritual life, the collapse of beliefs. “I have lost faith in man,” declared a literary hero of the 1930s, setting a rather high price on this loss. Beliefs collapse as a result of:
Emptiness and the loss of meaning are essentially expressions of the anxiety of non-being, which threatens a person's spiritual life. This question can be formulated differently: what is the nature of a person's anxiety when they encounter fragments of being, why does this fragment become a co-being for them? Thus, we have examined three types of anxiety, which are interwoven with one another in such a way that one of them sets the tone while the others add further shades to the state of anxiety. They are given by human existence itself and are fulfilled in the situation of despair to which they contribute. The anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness may be part of life, but with the right support and reflection, it can lead to personal growth and the search for new ways of finding meaning and satisfaction.
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