You’re right. I don’t understand it. But understanding is the booby prize. I can only answer one why, and understand that question, then there’s another why.
She doesn’t say “because it’s imaginary”. I only skimmed it yesterday because I had shopping and a meeting to get to. Which is ironic because that’s exactly what she is talking about, living my life, instead of imagining there is some other life that I should understand and/or be living. Here are my thoughts on her excellent essay in detail.
It starts with a description of seeing disorder caused by nature and the desire to fight against entropy.
Then the big question, “is it getting in the way of my life?” But she knows the question assumes that something else is “life” and raking leaves is not it. The “imaginary life” she describes is the thoughts she has about what life should be, not what it is, which at that moment, is raking leaves. This is what you see so many people doing, and you are right. People imagine life is something else and don’t “look into the void” as you call it. But, keep reading.
She puts it in big bold letters, that people think the daily tasks of life are somehow not good enough, “beneath them”, that the only “real” life is the one that has greater meaning.
Then the wisdom tradition is told. That’s the hard part. The part that doesn’t have simple words but needs a longer story to help grasp it. It includes a koan, a paradox, that shows logic is not adequate, that we can’t “explain” life. But, we can practice living while doing the laundry. BTW, you are the monk in the story, the one who wants to understand the shirt. But as she says, “the shirt is just a shirt”.
So, we get to the enchilada but you’ve skipped the practice, so you don’t know what the enchilada is. You think it’s an ultimate meaning, but then you find there is no answer to the “why” after a bunch of “whys”, so you conclude it’s nothing. You looked for greater meaning and didn’t find it, missing the enchilada. At that point, you are the same as the person who tries to find meaning in beer and football. Now you “can’t shake it”. The enchilada is still there and you’re still missing it. As she says, you would rather eat your own inflated self-importance. You aren’t important to the universe, you don’t matter. You can claim that having that realization made your feelings shut down. You take your own living out of the equation and are left with nothing.
She answers the question of “why cook”, which is the beginning of the regress of “whys”. But if you are only satisfied with an answer to the final why that no one can answer, then you miss every answer before that. You miss that living with each “why” is the point. As Joshu answered, “The oak tree”.