Townes Van Zandt said
We all got holes to fill,
And them holes are all that’s real,
Some fall on you like a storm, sometimes you dig your own.
She said: I wonder what it feels like to have holes falling on you?
He said: I think having holes fall on you feels just like nothing. It’s probably so much like nothing you want to scream but you can’t. Before it happens you think you’re afraid of nothing, but when Nothing happens to you, you realise you’re afraid of Nothing, and Nothing will eat out your heart and leave you alone in the dark with it.
One reply on “We all got holes to fill”
Are Townes’ holes really about nothingness? Holes to fill are the losses, absences, broken promises and unfulfilment that faces us at each and every step. I think that the storm of holes is about how sometimes one’s acute existential desolation is the result of being-in-the-world with others (think that’s from Heidegger) and sometimes we bring it on ourselves by our own actions.