The hole is always there, but I foolishly hope it’ll just go away

By David McElroy · December 26, 2020

I fell into a hole last night. I was pulled in by an obsession which I can’t always fight.

I couldn’t climb out of the hole. I couldn’t distract myself from the unfilled need. I couldn’t sleep. I fought this obsession all night, but nothing would distract me from its grip. Exhausted and unsettled, I finally fell asleep about 7:30 a.m.

I don’t fall into this hole very often, but it’s always there — always reminding me it’s waiting. There’s something inside that calls to me like the sirens called the Greek heroes of legend.

I like to pretend the hole doesn’t exist. What else can I do? It’s like a giant sinkhole running through my life, but I don‘t want people to know it’s there. I don’t even want to believe it’s there. I’m like a scared man who walks very fast and whistles loudly as he’s forced to travel through a graveyard which frightens him.

Even on good days, I know the hole is there — just waiting to pull me inside if I let my guard down. And on bad days, I look over into the hole, wanting it to go away but mesmerized by the vain fantasy that something might be different this time.

The hole hasn’t always been there. How long? It’s hard to say, but it’s had an ongoing effect on my life for years now. When I ignore it, there’s still a pull that threatens to overwhelm me. Even if I feel strong and safe some days, I know in the back of my mind that the hole is there. I know it’s not finished with me yet.

When I try to fill the hole — naively confident that this time things will be different — I find the hole is bottomless. No amount of effort will fill it. I don’t have enough of anything to take it away. I shovel everything I have into it — my memories, my hopes, my fears, my anger — but the hole eats everything I can throw into it. The massive hole is still hungry for more — and it wants to pull me inside.

I can even try to cover the hole, ignoring the emptiness inside. I can just put wood and nails and flooring over the hole. Maybe it won’t threaten me then. Maybe it won’t pull me inside. Maybe I can stop being obsessed with this fear and need. It might work for a day or two. Maybe even a week or more at times. But the sirens in that hole eventually laugh and effortlessly pull apart whatever I’ve built.

I’m not the only one who’s faced this. I know that. But it still feels shameful and hopeless. It feels as though nothing can change as long as the hole is there.

The writer Edna St. Vincent Millay had a hole in her world, too. She would have understood my pain. In a letter, she expressed her agony:

“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”

I walk around the hole in my life. I avoid it. I pretend it’s not there. I try to cover it. It’s exhausting.

And at night — the literal night at times and the metaphorical night at others — I fall into the hole. I spent all night in that hole last night. I’m exhausted, physically and emotionally.

But I have no idea how to make this huge hole in my life go away.

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The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

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