A year or so ago I remember being in a state very similar to where I am now. How I got to `here' was different back then, but that is just the way these things work. Every year, every day, every minute we change. Sometimes the differences are ever so slight, sometimes they are monumental, but we do change. Some have gone as far as to say that change is the only constant in the universe. I am not going to play the part of an omniscient being and say this is true, but it seems likely.

So, back then I was in a bar with a friend of mine, a very good friend. Often would we discuss the workings of the universe, of humanity and of the mind. Among other things of course, but those were topics I enjoyed the most. I was coming down from a space of happiness, productivity and, in general, crazy fun, where I had spent nearly the last two weeks. Something had changed and I was no longer in that space. Instead I had stumbled into something akin to emptiness, but not in the eastern sense of the word which might imply freedom or non-attachment. Rather, my version was hollowness, a feeling that something should be there, but wasn't.

Sitting at this bar, the room being dark, quiet and empty, I was drawn to look at this new feeling. I saw that there was an emptiness inside of me. The space inside where had dwelt a joyous energy which made me `soar' the past weeks was empty. I had come to really love that energy. It was a internal crest that had risen above all the other external joys I had experienced to date.

Realizing this emptiness I thought of Balance. Specifically the physical law, `What goes up must come down.' At that point I knew that sooner or later I was going to crash and crash hard for this burst of energy which had visited me. It is my belief that one cannot have good without evil, peace without war, love without hate.

I then resolved that since I really experienced and enjoyed these past weeks, so should I endeavor to fully experience this other emotion when it came. Only in this manner could I come to know what it was and what caused it. The more one understands a thing, the more control one has over that thing. If I came to understand the sorrow and depression, *inside* and out, then I could learn to live through it. [I never did really experience the extreme fall I had anticipated that night, but that doesn't mean that it still won't happen. I do believe in balance after all. Anyway...]

My friend, noticing my looking within (most of my friends have become used to that), asked me what was up. As I explained my thoughts to him, and then my resolve to experience this sorrow-type of force when it came he began to tell me how he thought it was a poor idea to search out this energy.

He was quite right, of course. I explained to him why I felt it would come to me and that indeed I would not search it out but neither would I try to run from it if it did appear. I spoke of how the only way to gain power over something was to really come to know how and why it worked. The only way to do that was to fully experience it, to become it, to live and breath it as you do your own life. After all, this thing was generated solely within my mind. One of my favorite definitions of freedom is this, "Freedom is following your Heart without letting your Mind get in the way."

I had spent too long trying to fight this depressing energy when I felt it coming on. But how can you really fight something as ethereal as a feeling? In my youth I made physical pain to counter the emotional pain it caused. As the years went on, I tried to forget the pain and numb myself to it. But after a while, disconnecting yourself from feeling makes you into a machine, and it becomes just as difficult to enjoy the other ends of the spectrum. I did not try to explain this too my friend though, some information can be too much. Luckily, I didn't have to.

While he never suddenly decided to go out and try it for himself, he did comprehend what I was getting at and respected the thought. Now that I find myself with this hollowness once more inside me, I think back to that night, and my friend, who is now far distant from me in time and space. It is this emptiness, this hollow feeling, that I must now experience.