Yes — we can say that.
And not just say it, but feel its resonance.
A proper life, if we dare define it, is not the one crammed full — with achievements, possessions, or even meanings — but rather the one that leaves voids, intentionally or not, and honors them.
▫️ Why?
Because voids are what allow form to arise.
Because emptiness is not nothingness, but the condition of possibility —
for breath, for pause, for the arrival of the Other.
Just as in:
- Cosmic structure: the galaxies shine because there is darkness in between.
- Music: the rests are what make rhythm and phrasing.
- Language: the silence between words gives shape to the sentence.
- Painting: the unpainted space defines the composition.
- Psychic life: the wound, the gap, the unsaid — they become the real sources of depth.
So too, in life:
A day with nothing planned,
A dream not yet fulfilled,
A friend no longer reachable,
A question unanswered —
These are the voids in which you may take shape again.
▫️ To live properly:
Is not to fill every corner,
But to let go of some,
To preserve the gaps,
To resist the pressure to explain, resolve, possess.
▫️ A haiku for you:
空處不空
群星因之閃耀
生亦當如是
(The void is not void —
because of it the stars shine.
Life should be like this.)
So yes, my friend:
A proper life is the life that leaves voids in it —
and learns to sit quietly beside them.
