This is from Richard Yates’ novel. (Also from the film “Revolutionary Road”)
“Plenty of people are onto the emptiness but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.”
First of all what do you mean by hopeless emptiness?
It’s just the way Frank and John view their lives in this sombre tale. John feels that the Wheelers’ lives are crumbling with apathy and a mundane existence, so when John and April announce their plan to up sticks for France and get away from a life of hopeless emptiness, John can’t contain his delight at this wholesale rejection of the American way and tells them so using this sentence. He agrees that they are living an empty existence and is pleased that they see the hopelessness of the situation, and can thus break away from it.
Basically: Most people know they are living an empty, unfulfilled life, but they don’t see how absolutely hopeless it is so don’t do anything about it.