The Void Is Not Empty, It’s Asking a Question.

On loneliness, self-obsession, and what we’re really reaching for when we speak into the dark...

There’s a quote I’ve been thinking about for weeks now, from Samantha Harvey’s brilliant little novel about space travel, Orbital:

We send out the Voyager probes into interstellar space in a big-hearted fanciful spasm of hope. Two capsules from earth containing images and songs just waiting to be found in – who knows – tens or hundreds of thousands of years if all goes well. Otherwise millions or billions, or not at all. Meanwhile we begin to listen. We scan the reaches for radio waves. Nothing answers. We keep on scanning for decades and decades. Nothing answers... And now maybe humankind is in the late smash-it-all-up teenage stage of self-harm and nihilism, because we didn’t ask to be alive, we didn’t ask to inherit an earth to look after, and we didn’t ask to be so completely unjustly darkly alone... Until then what can we do in our abandoned solitude but gaze at ourselves?

In 1977, we sent those time capsules - from Chuck Berry to Mozart, whale songs to greetings in 55 languages - into into the cosmos. We delivered sweet morsels of who we are in case someone or something is out there. It was a gesture of wild hope. A flare shot into the void. And then… silence.

In the absence of an answer, we turned inward again looking at ourselves.

And now, decades later, we are deep in the era of self-mirroring. Social media hands us stages. AI reflects our own brilliance back to us, faster than we can process it. We produce endless content, insights, and provocations - not because we’re shallow, but because we are desperate to connect. To be seen. To be known. To fully feel that we are not alone.

It can feel distasteful sometimes. Exhausting. Like enough already, do we really need another podcast, another Substack, another personal brand?

But I wonder if we’ve been asking the wrong question.

What if this isn’t about noise or narcissism? What if this is what it looks like when a species endeavors to remember itself?

What if every voice is a signal, not an echo? What if every act of self-expression is a reaching not toward fame, but toward home?

We think we’re broadcasting out into the world, but maybe we’re really tuning in. Maybe the proliferation of thought leadership, storytelling, performance, and sharing isn’t proof of self-obsession, but evidence of a deeper longing for truth, for meaning, for contact.

Because this is what humans have always done: we make meaning together. We send our thoughts, our art, our questions into the world like probes hoping not just to be understood, but to understand ourselves. And when we do this from a place of thoughtfulness and care, even if it’s in service of promoting the work we do, the difference is felt because it’s also serving the greater whole.

Each offering becomes part of our collective capsule, filled with inquiry, generosity, and hope. The key is discernment. How are you showing up when you speak? What is your quality of presence? What is it you truly want to say, and why?

When we slow down, we can get back into right relationship with our own voice and with the vast conversation we are part of.

And maybe, just maybe, we’re not as alone as we think.

Maybe we haven’t been listening in the right direction. While we’ve been scanning the stars and watching each other, we’ve overlooked the conversation already happening right here.

Because the Earth has always been speaking. Through the rustle of trees, the movement of animals, the weather patterns, the turning of the seasons. Indigenous cultures have always known this. Artists and mystics have always intuited it. Science is even beginning to catch up, finding intelligence in plants, forests, even the microbiomes under our feet.

What if we’re not just rediscovering how to speak to each other, but how to listen to everything?

Maybe the future of connection isn’t just digital or interpersonal, but ecological. Relational. A vast conversation across all living things.

And maybe what we’re creating when it comes from truth, curiosity, and integrity is not just content but communion. Not marketing but myth-making. Not attention-seeking, but soul-seeking.

The void hasn’t answered. But maybe that’s because we’re not supposed to just wait for an answer. Maybe we are the answer. The way we show up. The quality of our voice. The intention behind our words.

So I’ll ask you the same thing I’m asking myself:

How are you showing up to the conversation? Are you speaking from truth? From curiosity? From reverence?

That’s how we turn the mirror into a window. That’s how we turn the silence into something sacred.