Loneliness makes two

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THEY say that it is what we lack that compels us to appreciate and go after our purpose. Of course, that’s it. Wherever we’re fulfilled there is no need to search a thing out.

Meaning in life comes from absence — when the void becomes too much and must be filled. If a lack of meaning does not despair us, then absence creates a vacuum, and we’re impelled to address the shortfall. Meaning and purpose flood in.

In relational beings, loneliness in one and another makes two. Each person brings their paucity to the relationship. It is hoped that each has something to give. If both have only the capacity to take, each will drive the other far away. If one takes and one gives, it works for a time, but if in giving the person also receives there is a happy medium. It can be sustained. Relationships are all about balancing transactions.

Loneliness makes two wherever currencies of lack are complementary. One brings ‘this’, the other brings ‘that’, and with ‘this’ and ‘that’ everyone’s happy.

Life is inherently about lack. Lack is not a bad thing. It simply lets us know what we crave and must go after. It makes us hunters and gatherers. There’s nothing wrong with lacking something, especially as we consider a rule of life is that everyone lacks something.

Let there be gratitude for this fact: my lack is not any worse or better than your lack is. It is just different. You are not better than me, nor am I better than you. We are simply different. Yet we subscribe to the lie that life is full of ranking.

My lack is designed to be completed in ways that only someone else can fill. And another’s lack will depend on me to fill it. We are not better because we fill. We are not worse because we lack.

Life is pretty simple. We need each other.