Tuesday, June 24, 2025
I realized that my previous life was junk – filled with fillers. Fillers are fluff ingredients, like what hotdogs are made of. Conversations have fillers – the weather and politics are good ones. The body has fillers, quirky movements like nose scratching, eyebrow twitching, and foot fidgeting. A life full of fillers seems junked up, distracted, and most of all, empty. Empty calories.
When someone gets up to speak, give a presentation, or perform, you can tell if they are filled with fillers. They are creating the illusion of speaking, performing, or presenting, but it seems like no message comes through, and it’s just dye no. 4, bright red food coloring like “ums,” and “uhs” and “likes.” A political speech is often filled with fillers. It would be like if I sort of, you know, like, um, tried to write like – you know, like…um, literally like the way a babbling brook is, you know – just chirping, like, you know, kind of like constant noise, um, sort of?
Run-on sentences and platitudes like “Everything will work out in the end,” or “Everything happens for a reason” are fillers. My work life used to be nothing but junk – texting, phone scrolling, flitting around my desk, darting between emails, browsers, documents, phone calls, a knock at the door, a trip down the hall, a cup of coffee, a conversation with a colleague, dye no. 4, hyaluronic acid, calcium hydroxylapatite, poly-L-lactic acid, polymethyl methacrylate, and autologous fat. Then I’d come home empty, malnourished, and worried about tomorrow’s junk, diving into that bag of chips, never satisfied, never substantiated. No wonder – all fillers.
We don’t get to the depth – silence, curiosity, careful observation and attention. Rest, joy, attentiveness, play, and love are foreground, not background. A healthy life is deeper. Minimally processed, there’s a succulent art to existence. Life without fillers is sweet and straightforward, and most importantly, satisfying.