[3] He claims that some people who are facing a sense of emptiness try to resolve their painful feelings by becoming addicted to a drug or obsessive activity (be it compulsive sex, gambling or work) or engaging in "frenzied action" or violence.
[2] Existentialism, the "philosophic movement that gives voice to the sense of alienation and despair", comes from "man's recognition of his fundamental aloneness in an indifferent universe".
Crowded into cities, working in mindless jobs, and entertained by light mass media, we "live on the surface of life", so that even "people who seemingly have 'everything' feel empty, uneasy, discontented.
[citation needed] Other solutions which have been proposed to reduce a sense of emptiness are getting a pet[8][9] or trying Animal-Assisted Therapy; getting involved in spirituality such as meditation or religious rituals and service; volunteering to fill time and bring social contact; doing social interactions, such as community activities, clubs, or outings; or finding a hobby or recreational activity to regain their interest in life.
[10] Louis Dupré, a professor of philosophy at Yale University, argues that the "spiritual emptiness of our time is a symptom of its religious poverty".
These youth are seduced by the violent fantasy of the US gun culture, which provides negative role models of tough, aggressive men who use power to get what they want.
While people may try to resolve this emptiness by obsessively having sex, overeating, or taking drugs or alcohol, these addictions only give temporary satisfaction.
Eliot, whose poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" describes an "anti-hero or alienated soul, running away from or confronting the emptiness of his or her existence".
Professor Gordon Bigelow argues that the existentialist theme of "spiritual barrenness is commonplace in literature of the 20th century", which in addition to Eliot includes Ernest Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck and Anderson.
Mark Romanek's 1985 film Static tells the surreal story of a struggling inventor and crucifix factory worker named Ernie who feels spiritually empty because he is saddened by his parents' death in an accident.
Screenwriter Michael Tolkin's 1994 film The New Age examines "cultural hipness and spiritual emptiness", creating a "dark, ambitious, unsettling" film that depicts a fashionable LA couple who "are miserable in the midst of their sterile plenty", and whose souls are stunted by their lives of empty sex, consumption, and distractions.
Wes Anderson's 2007 film The Darjeeling Limited is about three brothers who "suffer from spiritual emptiness" and then "self-medicate themselves through sex, social withdrawal, and drugs.
The film, which is set amidst the decadence of the early 1980s, depicts an assortment of socially alienated, mainly well-off characters who numb their sense of emptiness with casual sex, alcohol, and drugs.
Contemporary architecture critic Herbert Muschamp argues that "horror vacui" (which is Latin for "fear of emptiness") is a key principle of design.
Unskilled persons whose eye of intelligence is obscured by the darkness of delusion conceive of an essence of things and then generate attachment and hostility with regard to them.In an interview, the Dalai Lama stated that tantric meditation can be used for "heightening your own realization of emptiness or mind of enlightenment".
As well, emptiness is "linked to the creative Void, meaning that it is a state of complete receptivity and perfect enlightenment", the merging of the "ego with its own essence", which Buddhists call the "clear light".