Creating a meaning machine: therapist reacts to “Emptiness Machine” by Linkin Park
Your blades are sharpened with precision
Flashing your favorite point of view.
Before we even get to Emily’s part, we have to pause and acknowledge that this is really cool. They're all just living their lives as if they weren't in the biggest band that ever existed, and then their lives changed seven years ago.
It's just so good to hear Linkin Park creating something new. It's so beautiful. It's so exciting.
We recently did a video about all of the controversy, and if this is the right or the wrong decision for Linkin Park to make — having Emily Armstrong as their new frontwoman, replacing Chester. I'm still in that mindset. I'm also in the Scientology mindset.
I'm seeing how this could be about their fans.
I know you're waiting in the distance
just like you always do
already pulling me in
already under my skin.
It’s like, “You're waiting to critique me.” I wonder if that could be about fans. No matter what Linkin Park does, they will always be critiqued. They are always going to be criticized. There will always be some people who come for them, who don't agree with their decisions.
That's also what happens when you try to seek outside validation and put it into the emptiness machine.
This chorus is so good:
Let you cut me open just to watch me bleed.
This line is interesting:
Going around like a revolver
It's been decided how we lose.
I keep on lying to, I keep on lying.
The emptiness machine is something we all experience in our lives, and on some level there's a part of us that knows that no matter what we do, we're always going to lose. It's already decided how we lose.
We are constantly looking at our lack and trying to improve, trying to reach for more, trying to be better, trying to get to the next thing. It's like if you're a small local band, you're thinking, “Oh, once I get to touring musician status, I'll feel full. I'll feel complete.”
But it's like every milestone along the way, you realize it doesn't fill you. This is the biggest band in the world singing about the emptiness machine.
Maybe for you it’s like, “Once I get the relationship, I’ll be happy.”
But then once you have that thing, it doesn't fill you, because you're so used to looking at your life through lack and looking at your life through the validation of the outside world.
That is where the emptiness comes from. We're always trying to conform.
Gave up who I am for who you wanted me to be.
And it still wasn't enough. No matter how much I give up, no matter how hard I try, no matter how I cut and contort and fix myself and make myself perfect, it's never going to be enough. I keep falling for the promise that one day I'll get it right, if I just get that thing. But all of us who have ever worked for something and reached for something in hopes that it would fix the way that we feel? We know that it actually doesn't fix us. We just shift our focus to seeking a new emptiness machine.
I only wanted to be part of something.
That is why we all do it. We all want to feel like we're a part of something meaningful. When we're putting our energy into the emptiness machine, we are trying to do so to create meaning in our lives.
But the reality is that emptiness can never create meaning. A place of lack can never create a place of abundance.
A place of “I don't have, I'm not enough, I'm not worthy” can never create. But you know what can? A place of “I am loved, I am connected, I am supported, I am worthy.” It's putting emptiness into the same equation and expecting to get different results, and acting surprised when we get the same result, which is more emptiness. Zero times zero is zero, times any number. Zero times a million is zero, right? We learned that in math class.
I think there are so many ways that you could go with this song. You could take it the way that I'm taking it. I think that you could also take it the route of being a commentary on someone getting sucked into a cult or Scientology. You could take it as the band trying to please their fans, but feeling like that's always an emptiness machine. There are so many ways.
Even at the end when he is like, “I wanted to be a part of something.” It's how much emptiness I imagine this band felt losing Chester, how much was lost when they lost him. I’m talking not only losing their friend, not only losing the front man of this incredible band, not only losing their jobs — but the way that it impacted them on a soul level.
That is a deep feeling of grief and loss. It's like, “We were a part of something, and then this happened.”
There are just so many powerful things in these lyrics. But what I really want us to take away, what I think we can apply in our own lives, is this idea: we don't realize it, but we hold the key to turning the emptiness machine into a meaning machine.
Most of us have an emptiness machine in our lives, saying “If I just get this job, if I just get this relationship, if I just move to this house, if a person just likes me, if I just feel accepted, if I just cure my depression.” When we focus on the emptiness in our lives, when we focus on the “I don't have” in our lives, we will continue to see lack even if we get the thing that we are working for, because we have trained our brain to look for emptiness.
But we hold the key to retraining our brain. We have to retrain our brain, what we focus on, to see meaningfulness instead of emptiness. We have to see gratitude.
We are all connected. We all are a part of something. We're all a part of a generation. We're all a part of a music scene. We're all a part of a music community. We're all a part of a family. We're all a part of a friend group.
Can you see that? Can you focus on the meaning in your life, even if it feels like the smallest thing in the world?
Even if it's like, “I woke up today and I'm listening to this song.” Focusing on the meaning in your life, training your brain to focus on the meaning in your life, will be the one thing that gets you away from the emptiness machine. Because all we're doing by fueling it is continuing to train our brain to look for lack and not-enoughness in our lives.
Where in your life can you notice the emptiness machine and instead see what you already have, what is meaningful to you?
I think for a lot of people it's the feeling of, “I just want a romantic relationship. I just want that one person.” And that’s understandable. But where do you already have so much love in your life? Where do your friends show up for you? Where do your coworkers show up for you? Where can you see and focus on the meaning?
That's how we combat the “Emptiness Machine.” We name it, we notice that we're doing it, and then we shift.
Naming the emptiness machine is crucial because it allows us to see the futility in our pursuit. It's the emptiness machine. It's like identifying a mirage in the desert once you know that it's not real. Once you know your efforts towards it are never going to work, then you can start to shift direction.
When you listen to this song and you sing this part: “I only wanted to be a part of something.”
I want you to sing it from a place where you already are a part of something, where you already do have enough.
If you want to be a part of a volunteer community that is supporting that kind of meaningful life, if you want to be a part of something that is creating good in the music scene and in the world, go to heartsupport.com/swat and you can volunteer to support music fans all over.
