Caring vs. Filling the Void

A friend recently confronted me about my thinking about void-filling.

“So the other day,” she said, “I came across some candy wrappers in the hallway. I hadn’t dropped them there, and I knew the person who had dropped them was responsible for picking them up. But I didn’t know who that person was. So I stooped down and picked up the trash. Was I filling a void? Or was I just caring?”

Such a good question!!

And here’s my answer:

“It depends.”

It depends, as I see it, on the feelings that accompany the act. It appears that my kind friend was perfectly content to pick up someone else’s garbage in this particular instance. “I couldn’t leave litter in the hallway!” she told me. “I care about this school!”

But what if my friend had felt differently? What if she had picked up the wrappers while muttering, “What the heck is wrong with people? Why can’t they pick up after themselves? Why do I always have to clean up other people’s messes?”

To me, that bitterness — which I believe would be wholly justified! — is a signal that one is filling a void.

In other words, one difference (for me) between caring and void-filling is the crucial and corrosive emotion of

resentment.

Resentment: the feeling I get when I believe I’m doing more than I should be. And that someone else is not doing what they should be. When I’m doing too much, and another person is not doing enough.

In this case, if my friend had felt resentful about picking up someone else’s garbage, I would not have discouraged her from filling that void. The trash did need to be picked up. What I would have wondered about (had she asked me) would have been her pattern of void-filling of which this particular instance was just one example. I would have encouraged her to cut back on her void-filling so as to make more room for caring.

Another difference between caring and filling the void, as I see it, is that

caring is not defensive.

That is, caring does not shield us from emotions we don’t want to feel. When I care, I am all-in for someone or something else. I am not thinking about myself or my acts; I’m leaning in, all-attentive, engrossed. (I highly recommend Nel Noddings’s ground-breaking book Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics & Moral Education for a careful and super-interesting discussion of the ethic of care.)

In contrast, when I’m filing the void (by my definition), it’s all about me. I’m stepping up not because I care (even though I might say and even feel that I do) but because taking action is my automatic way of defending against feelings I don’t want to have.

anxiety

fear

frustration

insecurity

lack of faith

guilt

Defending against such terrible feelings is completely normal and even sometimes laudable. (Better to enact a defense than to act out violently, for example.) But filling the void does a disservice to the other by preventing any chance of struggle that might lead to their growth and development.

Which brings us back to my original answer to the question, “What’s the difference between caring and filling the void?” It’s tricky, because acting in a way that shields oneself or someone else from terrible feelings or that helps someone avoid struggle can be caring. It can also be handicapping. Discerning the difference really does “depend.”