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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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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