Unfortunately, we remain caught between the two extremes, totally depressed, but not depressed enough to do anything about it. In this case, emptiness might be good because it might actually motivate us to change things. In his classic way of saying that modern experience is neither one thing nor the opposite, the speaker writes that we modern people have 'neither plenitude nor vacancy,' which reiterates his idea that we don't really have spiritual fullness or total emptiness.Only a flicker Over the strained time-ridden faces Distracted from distraction by distraction Filled with fancies and empty of meaning Tumid apathy with no concentration

We're just sort of stuck between good and bad, and this stuck-ness is what creates the numbness that the speaker fears most. Unfortunately for us, though, we're caught in a state of numbness that's dim, but not quite dark enough to make us start getting brighter again. Even though our spirits are dark, they aren't quite dark enough to 'purify the soul' through 'deprivation.' So what does the speaker mean by this? Well, he means that there's a silver lining in a person being completely broken down by sadness and spiritual emptiness, because, once you've hit rock bottom and are 'deprived' of everything, you've got nowhere to go but back up.Our possessions, our health, and even the people we love: all of these things will eventually go away, and with our spirits so dim, we don't even have the ability to recognize how beautiful these 'transient' shadows are until they're gone. What are shadows in this instance? Well, they're things that come and go very quickly (transient), which is just like a lot of things in our lives. Again, the poem tries to convey the numbness of modern life by saying that the 'light' of our souls isn't bright enough to create the fleeting, 'transient beauty' of shadows.

In other words, the speaker tells us here that there might still be a little bit of spirit (light) left in our modern lives, but it's dim at best.

This 'dim light' of unhappiness contrasts with the spiritual brightness that fills the pool in line 37.

He falls right back into talking about how worrying about the past and future, or 'time before and time after,' is basically a place of 'disaffection' or unhappiness that keeps us feeling crummy.The speaker is still trying to describe exactly how modern folks like ourselves can find spiritual peace. Here is a place of disaffection Time before and time after In a dim light: neither daylight Investing shadow into transient beauty With slow rotation suggesting permanence Nor darkness to purify the soul Emptying the sensual with deprivation Cleansing affection from the temporal.

Ts eliot burnt norton