There is a hole at the center of the universe and of history. In the heart of man is a void, a “primal fear,” something that is “always there,” lurking, “awaiting your concession,” “awaiting your indulgence,” the idea of loss itself. We are always and everywhere separate from that which could fulfill us—the gap between “is” and “ought to be” is insurmountable, because to say that man is not as he ought to be implies that he can course-correct, when the reality is that reality itself “is loss and all loss is eternal.
