Did you know that atmospheric pressure is 101.3 kilopascals at sea level? Just a number, isn’t it? A simple digit, a measurement, nothing more. But do not be deceived by how ordinary it sounds. This force is immense—so immense that if an object, no matter how massive or indestructible it appears, has an obvious pressure imbalance, it will be crushed without mercy.
A steel tanker, something designed to hold weight, to endure, can collapse like a fragile shell if the air inside is removed. It is not the object’s size, strength, or heaviness that matters—it is the balance that determines whether it stands or falls.
But have you ever wondered why the human body does not collapse under this same pressure? The atmosphere presses down on us relentlessly, yet we remain upright, intact, breathing. It is because we are not empty. Our bodies push back with an equal force, a delicate but necessary equilibrium. This is the only reason we do not crumple under the weight of existence itself.
The world outside is the same—an unrelenting weight of expectations, of voices louder than your own, of pressures pressing in from all sides. And just like a vessel with no air inside, what happens when there is nothing within? A hollow heart—empty of dreams, devoid of purpose—will not withstand the weight of this world.
If there is nothing within you—no fire, no love, no fight, no desires, no dreams—only emptiness—then the world will fold you into itself, make you smaller, silence your voice until you are nothing more than a crumpled remnant of what you could have been. Because the outside world does not ease its grip. It presses in, relentlessly.
And if the heart is hollow, devoid of something to push back, it collapses. It will cave in, crushed by the unseen hands of society, by the heaviness of a life dictated by others, by this external pressure. The soul implodes, crushed by everything but itself.
This is why you must fill your heart. With dreams so vast they press outward, resisting the weight of society’s mold. With goals so stubborn they refuse to break under the pressure of conformity. With love so deep it does not bend to the harshness of this world. This is why it is indispensable to fill your heart. With emotions so strong they refuse to be drowned by indifference. With a voice so true it does not falter under the noise of the world.
If you do not have something within you that is truly yours, the world will crush you into a shape of its own making.
So, feed your soul. Let your heart expand with purpose, with creativity, with something so fierce and undeniable that no external force can consume it. Life is a constant war of pressures—internal and external, seen and unseen. The struggle is not to avoid the weight, but to build something inside you strong enough to balance it.
Because in the end, only the empty collapse. Because in the end, life is about homeostasis.
— Sadia Hakim // Sciopoetica Series
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