Theophan suggests that we humans naturally tend to become preoccupied with the things that we see and touch. The things of this world become our highest good, although they cannot truly satisfy our feeling of emptiness. Only God can, Theophan says, truly satisfy our feeling of emptiness. This is also why, I believe, that people cannot stand being alone or not having noise going on around them (think about it, people are constantly on their cell phones or listening to the radio. It would appear that most of our society is afraid to be alone with their own thoughts and feelings).

It is clear, Theophan believes, why a man who sets himself up as the main object of his life can never be within himself. He is always focused on things outside of himself: on the things which were created or devised as a result of his own vanity in order to fill his craving. He has fallen away from God who is the fullness of everything. He is empty in himself. The only thing that remains is to spread himself among the endless variety of things and to live through them. So a sinner is thirsty, anxious and troubled about many and various things which are apart from himself and apart from God. That is why the characteristic feature of a sinful life, when one is neglectful of his salvation, is an anxiety and trouble about many things (Luke 10:41).

This is truly the description of what it means to be a sinful person – a person who is unaware of being seduced by the things of this world and not motivated to seek that which can satisfy his feeling of emptiness, namely God. This, of course, is what we must learn during this earthly sojourn. We must learn how to fill our feeling of emptiness with our attention directed toward God Who alone can fill our feelings of emptiness. St August says in his Confessions: You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.