Imagine if you had everything you could possibly ask for. Or may be you are not that rich but are reasonably well off in the world. Your basic needs are met, you don’t have to struggle for your survival. Most people would call you lucky!

Many would advise you to be grateful. What if you aren’t? What if you are still sad and empty inside? What if you don’t even know what you are looking for yet there is a gnawing emptiness inside which is constantly asking you…what are you looking for?

Most people would call this condition, this malady depression and perhaps I would too. Because I have been suffering from it for the last few years. Before Covid, my life was busy. I was working 8-12 hours a day, taking care of my daughter, living with my parents. After Covid too, I was doing the same things except that I had lost my job. But then, I created my airbnb business, started writing more.

Yet in those quiet moments when I would be writing or was alone, I would miss being in the office…in any office. Not because I love offices but because workplaces have this quality of completely absorbing you in them. Whether it is about colleagues or work or the mindless gossip, you don’t get time for yourself. You are constantly engaged in your environment.

Your world is full of so many distractions that you hardly get to meet the real you. In those moments of quiet, when you actually meet the real you, it is more of a quiet shock than anything else. You find that person inside is just like the protagonist in the famous novel ‘ The Invisible Man’ . A smart persona camouflaging the nothingness inside.

For some wise souls, the solution to my predicament would be a relationship..a man..a friend. And perhaps that is what people do. They fill up that emptiness with another person’s presence. But then does that work or does that increase the silence even further?

What is the solution to this emptiness? Remain busy? Run around ? Run after something? I am often reminded of the movie ‘Cast Away’ where Tom Hanks character is marooned on an island in a plane crash. He doesn’t know how to get out of the island because the waves around the island keep throwing his boat into the island. He contemplates the idea of suicide but does not follow it because he is not sure whether he will end up dying or just being crippled. Finally after some years, he realizes the tides have changed and after some planning manages to escape the island.

Do all of us at some point in time get Castaway in an island where we have no one to understand our plight? The island in the movie was abundant with food, water, caves and most basic necessities needed for survival. Something like our lives.

Yet we want to escape…yet we feel empty…why? Do you know? Have you been in this situation ever? What did you do about it? Do share your thoughts in the comments section!