The hole

"A man like Ringo got a great empty hole through the middle of him."

Well that sounds really bad. That's the kind of statement that requires a flame thrower and no mercy. When Doc Holliday poses this theory about Johnny Ringo in Tombstone, the psychopathic cowboy, we shiver and nod grimly.

It is clear now that the hero will have to shoot him, both for his own survival and the good of the nation.

There is a void somewhere in the middle of me. It’s…awkward. Not the kind of thing you want to admit to. For a long time, I am unaware of it. I’ve been walking around it every day for the last three decades without seeing it. I wonder why I lose track all of the good things that I have done (my degree show, that event I organised, the time I ran a marathon and jumped off a waterfall). Moments of bravery, achievement and pride gone like loose change and teaspoons. I’ve even suspected that there's something a bit suspicious about this endless misplacing. They are disappearing into the hole. A hole that parts of me have worked really hard, for a long time to disguise.

Wouldn't you? Nobody wants to be Ringo.

Who wants their inner landscape to have a hole in it?

Holes are sinister, lude, people fall into them (Touching the Void), monsters use them as access points (The Descent). Worse is a hole that is doing things on its own. Having a hole inside you that quietly and deliberately lifts all of your good memories and steals them? That's intent. What could the hole want with these memories? Is it eating them? Hoarding? Sewing them together into a perverse outfit (Silence of the Lambs)? Whatever it is, it's not good.

I can still remember the good things, but they are faded, easily forgotten, slipping out of my grasp. Like shadows of themselves.

My brain made the call a long time ago that the best thing to do about this hole is hide it behind a large pile of stuff, deceptions, rules and fences while the brain tries out different methods to fill it in.

What's the alternative? Trying to style it out in front of other people?

"Hi! My inner landscape is a modern Google style campus imaginarium producing video games and big ideas!"

"Mine is a museum with all the wonders of the world that I've seen on my travels carefully catalogued."

"Mine is a shadowy black hole that sucks in all light and joy!"

That's the kind of thing that gets you banned from your local meetup group forever. No, of course the brain is hiding it.
And I have no idea that this is happening.
As far as a solution goes, the brain is working on some pretty sound logic. If there's a hole that can only take in good memories, surely if there are enough good memories, the hole will eventually be filled. Then the brain will be able to reopen this part of the grounds again, having replaced the embarrassing and frightening hole with a flowerbed or ornamental pond.
So, in order to achieve this result, the brain needs to bring in good memories, a lot of them. Achievements, victories, awards, social, financial, academic, physical and creative.
Unfortunately, I’m not generating these fast enough. This hole isn't going to fill itself! So the brain starts creating incentives, beliefs that will motivate me to strive harder.

You're not trying hard enough

If you don't push harder it will be too late

People like winners

I work harder. I try to draw on memories to remind myself that I am winning, I am achieving things. Unfortunately all the memories are going into the hole, leaving me with only faint shadows. This makes me feel like I have achieved nothing. What have I been doing? I’m so lazy.
Shame slips in.
The brain notices shame, but it's actually a really effective tool. It stops me looking around in my own mind, makes me keep my head down and work harder.
The brain realises that this might not be the best plant to grow but it's all for a good cause, right? Soon the hole will be filled and then they can uproot the shame.
The hole takes in all of my achievements. It shows no signs of filling. The brain gets desperate. It creates new rules.

It's only good enough if you get that promotion

You need to publish it though

Real adults live in a nicer place than this

When I achieve these things, and the brain sees that the hole is still there, it moves the goal posts, desperate.

Oh, but you should have that job

You should be completely happy in this relationship

You have to try harder

Eventually parts of the brain get dispirited. The project is not working. They take it out on me.

"You aren't good enough," it says. "If you were good enough...well. Never mind."

It imagines an ornamental pond where the hole used to be.

While this is going on, I have been working my ass off for years with zero congratulations. For some reason my brain always looks vaguely disappointed and stressed when I hit another milestone. I don't know why this is because I still don't know about the hole.
At some point, when another rule comes in about me not being good enough, I learn how to detach. It has been obvious for a while that this is a game I cannot win. So instead I find ways to distance myself from it.

I watch all of The Good Place.

I discover a corner of the internet where people argue ferociously about the meaning behind Mark Danielewski novels.

I eat comfort food and watch fox videos on Instagram.

A new part of my brain notices that I am doing this, instead of making progress in my relationships or my work and dedicates itself to trying to fix the problem that is "too many fox videos."

I am now certain that my biggest problem is my tendency to distract myself with videos on the internet instead of working.

I believe that if I could fix this one thing, everything would be okay.

I still do not know about the hole.

I am no longer really aware of the parts of my brain that are telling me that I need to try harder and that I am not any good.

A hole leads to a set of rules that lead to an endless stream of avoidance activities. My brain is full of slightly stressful foxes. They never go into the hole. They're really loud.

So what is the answer?

1. Get Doc Holliday to shoot me. He's the only one who can draw fast enough and I have to be put down before I kill again.

No. In the reality where no one wears spurs, the hole does not appear to have turned me into a psychopath.

2. It feels like I should know about the hole though.

This is a good idea. Most of my problems have arisen not from the hole, but from my brain's cack handed attempts to deal with the problem.

The brain protests loudly.

"Don't talk about the hole! It will be devastating. It's a terrible thing to learn about yourself. Leave it with us, we are maybe days away from solving it."

The thing is, the brain has been saying that it's days away from filling the hole for more than thirty years. It's plausible that the brain has not "got this" and a new approach is warranted.

The argument that knowledge of the hole will make me unhappy is a moot point. I’m unhappy now.

So the hole is revealed. I look at it, uncomprehending for several hours.

"Well fuck," I say. "That explains a lot."

If anything I sound a bit relieved.

"Hey," I say, moving a bit closer to the edge.

The hole doesn't say anything. It's just a hole.

The thing is, up close like this it is fair to say that it's a scary looking hole. The surface is completely circular, and as dark as a sensory deprivation tank painted by Anish Kapoor in a power cut.

It's dark.

As I watch, this writing disappears into it with a silent jerk that looks like the sound "whoosh." It does not disturb the surface of the hole at all. It's just gone.

"Well that is sinister as all hell," I say. It is.

The rest of my brain is a busy collection of machinery made out of copper, marbles and wheels. There are plants growing over the pistons, and owls nesting in the scaffolding. There's a boating lake with a complicated set of messenger pedalos and a library. And of course, internet foxes everywhere. The hole is an unsightly, sinister eyesore on the green and brass scenery.

So what the hell am I supposed to do about it?

1. Continue hiding it behind a crumbling wall of shame, demanding beliefs and wisteria.

This has not made even a tiny dent in the amount of positive memories that keep getting sucked into it over the last thirty years. I am unhappy. I am unwell. No, this strategy is not working.

2. Pave over the hole.

This is pretty much the same solution as idea one, seeing as the concrete would have to be mixed out of the same bad rules, shame and ivy that I used for the wall.

The brain chips in.

"If we try to seal the gap, it eats the concrete."

Well that sounds just horrible.

3. Build a bridge over it. A pretty arch bridge with a fancy filigree railing and brass dragons at the end.

This sounds delightful but it doesn't solve the problem of all my positive memories falling into the hole. I need to start having access to these memories again.

4. Go into the hole.

No, this is terrifying. Surely nothing good can come of this. What happens to people who climb into mysterious black holes in their own minds?

• They cease to exist as soon as they pass below the surface
• They fall a short way, cannot get back out and die slowly
• They fall a really long way and die, quickly
• They fall forever
• They transform into some kind of horrible monster
• Monsters are waiting below the surface. They are eaten
• The hole IS a monster. They are eaten.

Clearly monsters feature heavily here

I don't want to do it. Every fibre of my being is telling me that going into the hole is a bad idea.
So I just sort of sit with the hole for a while.

My brain hates this. It has a really specific mandate about the hole, which I am ruining by openly looking at it over and over again. Also, there are still foxes everywhere. Looking at the hole has not suddenly solved all of my problems. I am still procrastinating and the brain is still trying to tell me that I need to try harder.

"I hate that everything is still covered in foxes," it grumbles.

I shrug. I was sort of hoping that finding the hole would have changed something, but that hasn't happened yet.

The hole does not become more or less mysterious over time. It is unknowable. Its surface refusing to reflect anything, the sky, my face peering over it. It is neither liquid or solid or shadow, neither translucent or reflective.

One thing that is really obvious to me is that this hole isn't going anywhere. It's not going to be filled in, or disappear. It's part of me.

"Yes, but it's not a good part," the brain mutters.

I sit with that for a while.

My brain tries to create some new inspirational messaging to get me to stop looking at it.

I am wasting my time

There are things I should be doing

I will not get well if I do not go back to researching and focusing on my symptoms

Real adults achieve things. Why aren’t I working on something instead of sitting here?

Sometimes this makes me leave the hole for a while. But I keep coming back to it. It's starting to seem less frightening than it did. It's also not an eyesore. It's dramatic and strange. It's part of me.
When I am not looking at it, I do things I like. Writing something I’m proud of or making a card for a friend. Supporting my partner through a crisis. Reading a book. Learning something new about moths. Trying out a new recipe. All of it finds its way into the hole.

It's becoming really obvious to me that I am going to need to go in after all of this stuff, and find out what is on the other side.

This is where I am, poised, hovering.

I have tried to imagine what I might find inside the hole.
Of course, the bad answers are possible.

Destruction is a real thing inside the brain. I have forgotten more things than I know. The hole could be a kind of acid pit as featured in any respectable villain's lair that removes things from the world with a sizzle. If I’m honest, I don't think that the hole will annihilate me, but I am afraid that it will hurt, or that I will get vertigo that never leaves, as I fall and fall.

That's a risk and I can't find an answer to it.

Except that sometimes, now, my heart races and I feel like I am falling. Sometimes it hurts.

The other possibility is, basically, monsters. The hole either turns me into something horrible or releases something horrible, all much of a muchness when you get right down to it. What if the hole is a necessary canal lock, keeping all the bad things on one side? If I breach the surface, all the worst parts of me will be running around loose in my head, chewing on the machinery and messing up my life. If the price for keeping all that ugliness locked down is the flavour in a bunch of good memories, surely that's cheap at the price?

"Yes," says my brain.

"No," I think, surprising myself.

If bits of me are ugly and weird, preferring to cackle in corners and (metaphorically) chase cats up trees, then so be it. Keeping those bits locked away is costing me too much. Let me be what I am. Let me be Ringo or the bad kind of gremlin. The gremlins look like they're getting a kick out of life. Isn't it about time I was too?

But there are other possibilities.
What if when I jump into the hole, darkness gives way to stars?

Not endless falling but open space, stretching endlessly outward?

What would it mean to have such infinite space inside of me?

What if the hole is not a void but a gateway, to somewhere else in my mind that I’ve never been? Unimaginable, curious, a next level?

What if the hole is just what it says on the tin? A hole with a bottom that I can jump into and climb out of again?
At the bottom, everything I’ve lost. Drawings, speeches, leaps of faith. Moments of bravado, silliness, romance. Endurance and adventure. Keys, charms, prizes and tokens.

In this and every one of these possibilities, nothing is truly lost. It is just waiting, floating in space, or sitting on a mountain path, or at the bottom of a hole, waiting for me to jump in and find it. Everything that I have allowed myself to forget that makes me such an astonishing, fiercely weird and wonderful person.

I sit at the edge of the hole, crouched, leaning. It is the exact look I get on my face before I do something impulsive and maybe crazy. I haven't gotten that look on my face in a long time. It's kind of beautiful.

My brain, defeated, is crashed out next to me, the pages of its thirty year crisis management plan blowing away in the breeze, missing the hole completely and getting caught in trees and pounced on by foxes.

"I'm afraid of it," the brain finally admits in a whisper.

"I know," I say.

And then...