Are We Experiencing Absence Within Abundance?

Emotions come in countless forms, but today, I want to write about feelings. Inspired by Cem Şen's perspective, I’ll attempt to articulate what I’ve understood, as writing is my way of processing and internalizing ideas. This piece is a personal practice, an effort to open a door to deeper understanding.

Cem Şen says emotions and feelings are not the same—they are connected but distinct. Feelings can be categorized as pleasurable, painful, or neutral. The goal of life, it seems, is to experience more of the pleasurable ones while avoiding the painful ones. A wise mind, however, recognizes the neutral feelings that lie beyond these two. An untrained, unaware mind, on the other hand, often perceives even neutral feelings as painful, meaning the spectrum of feelings only broadens as awareness expands. Simple, isn’t it?

Pleasurable feelings, though fleeting, often come at a steep cost, and the inability to sustain them can lead to suffering. Seen this way, avoiding or detaching from pleasure starts to sound quite logical to me. In my last therapy session, my therapist mirrored something revealing: in avoiding suffering, I had also been avoiding pleasure. I agreed, only for them to counter, "But life itself is suffering." When I said, “This is my path,” they seemed threatened by my resolve.

Perhaps my therapist, like many of us, hadn’t yet tasted the neutral feelings Cem Şen speaks of—the state where you realize the futility of lingering in pleasure. Or perhaps they were testing my boundaries.

Cem Şen calls this inability to reach that state "absence within abundance." It’s a place unattainable while clinging to fleeting pleasures or running from pain and suffering.

This stirred something within me—a sense of excitement, a rekindled curiosity. At one point, avoiding both pain and pleasure felt like laziness, a refusal to live, to experience. But now, my mind seemed to open a new door. While I knew this truth internally, my mind still sought answers, endlessly circling. How much I was searching for solutions through thinking and knowing!

In the reality we inhabit, the purpose of life seems to be the pursuit of happiness through pleasure and the avoidance of unhappiness through pain. Yet, life itself exists to challenge this belief, to strip it away. While all of this may sound perplexing, isn’t the mere act of daring to look beyond pleasure and satisfaction toward that neutral feeling—a fleeting glimmer of truth—worth it?

Wouldn’t it be worth letting go of the fleeting, ultimately disappointing pleasures we chase our whole lives, to give something yet untasted a chance?

As I strive to understand, interpret, and express emotions, as I try to decode their language and hear what they’re telling me, I wonder: should I instead focus on feelings?

Or perhaps it’s time to gather the stones I’ve collected in mastering emotions, tuck them into my pocket, and carry that mastery into this new awareness—to pursue the neutral feelings that lie beyond pleasure and pain. Maybe "pursue" is the wrong word. Perhaps they aren’t meant to be sought or chased. Cem Şen’s words ring true: "We live in absence within abundance." My mind, once again, wants to leave what is present and seek what is absent, searching for something far away.

As I write, lyrics echo in my mind: “Don’t look far, for you are within me. You’ve built your throne in the deepest part of my heart.” Like this song I’ve heard countless times without truly listening, perhaps what I seek is right in front of me, so close I’ve missed it.

May we all find the courage to touch it, to connect with it in awareness.

Ohh.