In The Void

“Absences are not just what there is not, but rather what was there and now is not any longer, or what should be there and yet is not”

-Elisa Adami

Over the past year and a half, I have recovered from another depressive episode, one that lasted a month and a half. Even in the aftermath, it still took me another month to go back to therapy and be prescribed antidepressants. And yet I’m unsure where to go next. I am currently stuck between certainty and stagnation. It left a gap for me to bridge, yet I don’t know how to fill it. To carry a void, means to be at a loss, unsure; the opposite of being. When ignored and exasperatingly frustrated, the void propels us to be irrational, to sleep with the wrong people, to speak horrendously, to look down at our pain so much that we don’t look up and outward. The feeling of emptiness is not an individual experience. This has become increasingly transparent over the past two years. Before it was veiled as uppity cynicism, but modern culture always catches up. Western TV shows and films have turned nothingness into entertainment fodder. Actors drag their feet, passively gazing outward at the expanse of their configured worlds. The coloring is appropriately desaturated, blurring all surroundings into gray blurs. At this point nihilism is just another brand, a commodified opposition to toxic positivity. Western culture struggles with understanding the void, since to be nothing means to have no value, no capital, no inherent citizenship.

“You don’t want anything? You won’t have anything. You don’t have anything, you’re nothing. You may as well be dead. You’re not even a citizen of the United States.”

• Wanda, dir. Barbara Loden

(From Barbara Loden’s Wanda, I recommend this movie to understand nothing, to empathize with those of us who, socially speaking, have no value unless it’s to serve another). When I think of the titular Wanda, I imagine both girl bosses and contemporary feminists rolling their eyes at the thought of feeling sympathy for a woman who cannot defend herself. Such is the irony of a misreading, in that it reveals our own unchecked prejudices. Wanda Goronski is nothing in that she is working class, unemployed, and a bad mother (she practically gives away her kids to her ex-husband and his much more competent, new wife). Nothing is her world, which is the drab backdrop of eastern Pennsylvania. She floats through it like a blur of light, listlessly attaching herself to various people, mostly men, who use her for their own purposes. A less understanding director would have made Wanda feel like a sob story. Barbara Loden knows what it means to be a woman, a mother, a wife, a person who’s only value is defined by her service to others. Wanda never mocks our ideas of womanhood and emptiness, because Loden’s intent isn’t to be loud or abrasive, but to quietly carve away a space for the nothings and voids to quietly exist. By aptly naming her film after the protagonist, Loden forces us to only look at her, this body that is treated as an object, a space to imprint upon.

What about the shape? I refuse to believe the void is a literal black hole, for it is too unimaginative for nothingness to just be blank. Nothingness comes in various forms, depending on the person. For me it is Harry Dean Stanton shaped, hunched over, wizened, and cracked. Every line on his face has a story to tell, every minute movement indicates a story you may never completely know, but it adds on to the weight of his persona. This is how Harry Dean Stanton built his career and an impressive one that totaled in over 100 films. The swan song to his monumental filmography is Lucky.(I recommend this movie for when you are ready to sit with the void). Lucky is ageless and not ageless like a vampire, devoid and ethereal. Ageless like hollow, yet pulsing. He quietly lives his daily mundane routine until a fateful nervous breakdown. From there he grapples to make sense of what it means to live. What measures do we place to qualify our existence? The answer is so simple, nothing. Change and resistance does not entirely grant progression, sometimes we are stuck where we started. However, that doesn’t mean we still can’t smile when granted this realization.

So this begs the question what comes after? Smiling is a start, but even pragmatism can be its own kind of limbo. To just accept life is the easy answer, to shape and rebuild from nothing is a challenge. Going through ego death is mostly resistance, then eventual, reluctant acceptance. It’s recklessly searching for a way out, hoping to remain intact. I recently saw Pig, as a treat to myself. I walked in believing to see Nic Cage fueled nonsense as a means to distract, instead I left more unsure of where to go next in life. Other veteran actors have made career comebacks through franchises or Oscar baited fare. Nic Cage chose to quietly and insistently reappear. With Pig, he stubbornly searches for his stolen truffle pig. One would beg the question: it’s just a pig, so why the trouble? Layer after subtle layer reveals a more personal matter of grief unacknowledged. Actors always carry the body of their work within the context of their performances. It’s why Cage’s performance feels so surreal despite his history of over-exaggerated performances. One scene places him in an underground fight club amongst lowly restaurateurs. It’s blatant commentary on how our current system could easily lead us to literally fight in order to live. Watching the scene could be disappointing or reaffirming. Movies like John Wick, would lead us to believe this the moment: Cage will finally become unhinged, giving way to rage filled entertainment. We are not given this catharsis. He is repeatedly knocked down, only to stand once more. There is nothing grandiose to revel in, because such spectacles would be a distraction.

The search for his pig is a red herring. It may be futile to assume she may still be alive after being taken, but looking for her leads to the film’s revelation: a once acclaimed chef of legendary caliber, who went into hiding upon losing his wife. Through his grief came the realization everything is temporary, nothing truly matters, so why participate in needless pursuits. Even if his stoicism elevates him among his career-oriented peers, this does not prepare him from confronting loss all again. Lucky and Pig share the commonality of the temporality of life. Unlike Lucky, Pig gives a possible solution of what happens next. With acceptance of an absence comes the process of regeneration, it’s on par with the cycle of grief in which trial and error metamorphose into something wholly new, but still recognizable. It’s easier to stagnate, ignoring the void. Yet life was not meant to be lived habitually. The least we can do is acknowledge we are empty, the most requires engaging with the void. Slowly I build a new self. I run. I make plans. I meet new people. I engage and listen. I shake hands with these new experiences, then gently let them go when it’s time to move on. I anticipate who I’ll become with open arms.

A list to better understand the void

• This monologue from Lucky
• A Jane Mead poem
• The Last Inn on the Sea located on Hatteras Island in North Carolina
• This Feeling by The Alabama Shakes
• And this beautiful Bruce Springsteen cover by Cassandra Violet