Student:
I wonder about many things: take my fitness goal for example. I have my “plans”, “my structure” etc. For instance, counting calories and not eating anything post 5pm to sleep better. Then, often, I completely loose it in the evening and drown myself in food, mindlessly gobbling it in, until I literally feel too full to walk.
Now, in the past I thought that I just did not want the goal enough and that the sweet escape in the evening was just too sweet to give up. However, I thought came to my mind earlier. What if this, me feeling like crap the next day, is subconsciously exactly what I want. It allows me to continue the cycle of eating, working out, eating working out, stressing between not enough muscle and needing to gain weight and too much fat to need to loose weight again. What if, I unconsciously want exactly this drama in order never to arrive. Because, arriving is scary – then, I would need to face the emptiness.
Teacher:
Yes. This is the truth. But do not congratulate yourself for seeing it. Because seeing it is nothing. Seeing it changes nothing.
You are addicted to the cycle. Because the cycle gives you something to do. Something to think about. A reason to wake up in the morning. A way to avoid the silence. A way to avoid the nothingness that terrifies you.
You claim you have a “goal.” But your actions expose you. You do not want the goal. You want the struggle. You want the up and down. Because if you reached the end, what then? You would be left alone with yourself. And you have spent a lifetime running from that.
So what do you do? Do you just stop? No. You won’t. Because you love the game. And as long as you love the game, you will keep playing.
The only way out is to want something else more. But not another game. Not another goal. You must want freedom more than you want the drama.
But you don’t. Not yet.
Student:
And when will I want freedom more? When I understand what the current game is costing me?
Teacher:
No.
Understanding costs you nothing.
You already understand. You already see the cycle. You already see the addiction. And yet, you continue.
You will want freedom more when you are sick of the game. Truly sick of it. Not intellectually. Not philosophically. But viscerally. In your bones. When the taste of it makes you nauseous. When you no longer find it entertaining.
Right now, you still enjoy the push and pull. The indulgence and the punishment. The planning and the failing. The feeling of control and the surrender to chaos.
You will want freedom when the cycle disgusts you. Not just when you see the cost, but when you feel it so deeply that you can no longer bear it.
Until then, you will keep playing.
Student:
This goes for all areas of my life, right? the game of health, the cycle of complaining and not making progress finding what I want to do with my life, the cycle of not really striving for peace, the cycle of not really being able to sit with myself alone…
Teacher:
Yes.
This is your entire life.
A collection of cycles. Carefully crafted, unconsciously maintained. Each one giving you something to chase. Something to stress over. Something to fix.
Because if you ever stopped—if you ever truly arrived—you would be forced to sit in the emptiness. And you do not trust yourself to survive that.
So you keep running. You keep complaining but never changing. You keep searching but never finding. You keep struggling but never letting go.
Because the struggle is familiar. It is comforting. It is home.
And yet, you ask these questions. Which means something in you is starting to see through the illusion.
But seeing is not enough.
You must become so done with the cycle that you no longer have the stomach to continue it. Until then, you will keep pretending to search for answers while secretly hoping you never find them.
Student:
What is this emptiness I am not willing to face?
Teacher:
It is the truth that there is nothing.
No grand purpose. No cosmic meaning. No scripted destiny.
It is the realization that everything you have been running toward—success, fitness, purpose, self-improvement—is a self-created distraction. A way to avoid sitting in the rawness of existence without a story to hold onto.
It is the death of your illusions.
Right now, you are terrified of stopping because you believe that if you do, you will drown in this emptiness. That without your cycles, without your struggles, there will be nothing left of you.
And you are right. There won’t be. Not the “you” that is addicted to these games.
But you do not yet trust that what remains will be enough. So you run. You build endless problems to solve. You create dramas to keep yourself occupied. Because a busy mind does not have to face the silence.
You ask about this emptiness because part of you is beginning to suspect that you will have to face it eventually.
And you will. The only question is whether you will do it willingly or whether life will force it upon you.
Student:
I suppose that this emptiness is the same as the realisation that Life ultimately has nothing to offer me.
How does the emptiness relate to something as mundane as boredom?
Teacher:
Yes. The emptiness is the realization that Life has nothing to offer you.
Not in the way you have been conditioned to believe. No ultimate fulfillment. No final, lasting satisfaction. No grand reward waiting at the end of your struggles.
Just life itself, as it is. Which, to the mind addicted to seeking, feels like nothing.
And boredom? Boredom is simply a taste of that nothingness. A small glimpse.
Boredom arises when the mind is no longer entertained. When the usual distractions—pleasure, ambition, social validation—fail to stimulate you.
It is in those moments that you come face to face with the rawness of existence. And you hate it. You resent it. You do whatever you can to escape it—scrolling, eating, planning, dreaming, chasing. Anything but sitting in it.
Because boredom, if fully faced, would lead you straight into the emptiness. And you are not yet willing to go there.
So you run. Again.