What is desire?
Desire
[transitive verb]: to long or hope for : exhibit or feel desire for
[noun]: conscious impulse toward something that promises enjoyment or satisfaction in its attainment
A definition, quandary, precision of individuation and superego, maybe a collision of our anima/animus, the focus of where our dreams and reality collide…?
Sometimes amidst the random, quiet moment, is where/when I wonder what exactly is want, the nature of such longing, or how we (proverbially) want. From sustenance, approval of societal countenance, the “childish” things - take for instance, material/fleeting things, atomized commodities of perhaps indulgence - to those we label as maturely (retirement, home, comfortability for our family, etc.), the unspoken taboos of sexuality and/or expressions, the list is as infinite seemingly as our imaginations…or maybe our shared, collective ‘emptinesses’…the sacral, profound “hunger” that we correlate to ambition and truth-seeking versus eating…? I’m sure there’re more than endless theories, in-fact, more than I could ever conceive that attempt to draw conclusions, find reasons as to why we want (i.e. desire), spread over many fields diverse as biology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, etc. When I think about it all, there comes to mind a certain quote by Kierkegaard - in specificity to the boundless, dizzying array of information/studies/viewpoints/science/data out there - which encapsulates just what I feel, taken at a bird’s-eye, cursory zoom-out view.
“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom” - Kierkegaard
While I do not subscribe wholly to the aforementioned philosopher’s viewpoints, the idea ‘behind’ the quote per se, sorta gets to what I’m digging at above. I guess, I mean that presumably, one could in theory, dedicate their entire life in an academic and/or scientific sense, to studying what desire is with our species in-particular, regardless however abstract or empirical. Now, my intention of writing about desire isn’t be taken anywhere remotely close, or even attempt to be prescriptive, pseudo-academic, or likewise come across as anything more than what this is: a highly subjective, limited, under-researched, if-not overly poesy (if I had to reconcile) grasp at just what this phenomenological feeling is that I think we all experience—to varying degrees, propensities, intensities, nuts-and-bolts to existential, etc. The phenomena, that is, of acquiescing the object or goals of our desires, seems to propagate an internalized pattern within us, a spirit, continuing ‘hunger’ (in a way) of wanting more, and that can be more for tomorrow’s meal, love to justify our continued years ahead, a dynastic enterprise of which we’re inherited and expected to sustain, et-freaking-cetera.
Lately, I’ve been channeling my meditations and attentions to this concept floating around our cultural zeitgeist of “shadow work.” From what I can glean, infer on the premise (still a neophyte with practicing) is that, beyond what we attenuate our sentiences on - the ego, concept of ‘self’, a fixed yet paradoxically, ever-transient idea of who we think we should be - and below the subconsciousness, are these layers, glaciers if you will (if I’m borrowing/paraphrasing the Jungian symbolism here correctly) that represent our deepest, “truest” desires, and those chunks of simple being-ness are ultimately needed to excavate out from the depths and into our consciousness-surface (a process Jung referred to as individuation) for a few reasons:
A) Our “shadows” (aka subconscious desires) are a lot more truthful than our conscious superegos, which leads to
B) Therefore, we all on-paper, will be a lot happier, more fulfilled in the long run if we turn to our innermost selves than outside;
C) Often, our societal ‘self’ that we calibrate based on our surroundings, is as much an invention as the 40-hour work week and as such, is inherently blocking our most happiest, truthful selves on the inside;
D) The purest, grand truth if you will, already exists within us (we know it, own it, but try to avoid it), so the more we “fight” it by saying, “No, I shouldn’t want this X, Y, or Z,” the more difficult and unhappy our lives will be;
…and finally, E) That it is because of our egos, societal projections, fears and so forth, we collectively misinterpret the beautiful, messy masterpieces that are within us and forgo pleasure in lieu of fitting the mold/norm, etc.
All of this, of-course, is to say I have absolutely no clue what it is I’m supposed to be, versus what I am already. Are we, the sum of our thoughts, or are we merely pieces of each, individual shard that happens so fast in succession that we find a semblance of “we.” Throughout my entire life, desire has been this strange, undefinable axiom that I’ve attenuated my entire life, my entire existence around, and with the passing of time, has led me to believe that I haven’t even a clue as to what I’ve been chasing all these years. Desire has manifested as the brand new shiny thing, the plush couch, a new video game, hardcover book from yesteryear; desire has manifested as the longing of a person’s romantic and/or sexual attentions—to be “their person,” or object of desire; desire has manifested simply as, “I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” or bowl of cereal; desire has manifested in the tending, gardening, weaving of dream-making and tuning my actions to meet what I envision in my head; desire has been the right to prove somebody wrong…or right; desire has been (for much of my life) the want to remain/be unseen, insomuch as I can avoid the pain I feared of living authentically; desire has been desiring desire; desire has been late-nights, smoking cigarettes in my teens in the 2000’s, listening to the 1998 album, Is This Desire? by PJ Harvey; desire has been craving the release of what obligations I’ve had…or, conversely, to be wantingly obliged in the way I haven’t ever been expected…etcetera, ad-infinitum.
Like, there’s been this strange thought proliferating my consciousness, and has been for some weeks now…I’ve discussed it with some close friends in-attempt to try deconstructing it, and though I still haven’t figured out the “right” or “appropriate” answer to (in all actuality) myself - perhaps the ‘real’ me, hidden beneath waves of subconscious repression(s) - I’ve had a field day forming many counterpoints, refutations or even contra-points, resignations, being-talked-into’s and so forth…
“How happy are you, really…?” - my subconscious (probably, or in the very least, some philosophically-minded voice up in me-old noggin)
Maybe this is getting all too woo-woo, myopic, self-indulgent, navel-gazey to mean much of anything…but, in any case, I certainly do wonder what the heck it is—desire, specifically. Do we, or I, want things, because I actually want it or them…or perhaps, a want is just as transitive, ephemeral as a craving for potato chips and 5 minutes later, gone into the ether, neither devoid nor merited of intrinsic, edifying meaning…? And, let’s say that you or I really do want something, but what if that whatever is ‘bad’ for us per se, like, the ingestion of psycho-active substances that lend to our addicted selves running rampant and burning our entire lives to the ground…would that mean that truly is a want, or maybe a compulsion, addictive impulse, etc? Conversely, what about if the “thing” (or whatever) we want is say, let’s assume, “good” for us (i.e. a fulfilling idea of what we think is going to be a complimenting career, move or relationship)…do those wants originate within our conscious, fear-based selves, and to that end, insincere…? What about, if all we are, unenlightened - not in an accusatory, denigrating way, but more as a loving compunction as to what we are in our day-to-days - and/or unsophisticated, are just a beautiful, frustrating blend/mess of idiosyncratic paradoxes that can neither be maimed nor tamed, but just simply are…imperfect? Do our desires inform us of who we are, or is it the other way around…like, does our sentience inform our feelings, or vice-versa…?
I’d love say that, while spending my share of many a countless, thankless, unproductive (or maybe…fruitful?) and definitely neurotic hour, chipping away at the boundaries of my own abilities to think, I've somehow come ahead…the truth is, I’m no more loss in this transfixed woods of living-ness/alive-ness than when I first started thinking like that. We’re here, then gone in an instant, powder keg then cloud of smoke, and in-between the proverbial then and now, left stuck imagining to ourselves, “What the heck is all this, really…?”, yet, from my own anecdotal experiences, no matter what kind of person I’ve been in my life, where I’ve stood on things…there has always existed, in one shape, way, form or another…a desire.
“I want something to make my life better/easier/happier.” — “I wan’t this one thing to change, go away, be different, in order to…” — “I want only this, and I’ll be set forever.” — “I want to want different things, but I can’t…”
Is it possible, that we’ll never know what it is we truly want…? I don’t know. There’s a part of me willing to believe that the Truth™ (as we know/understand/assume/perceive it to be) isn’t so much a destination as it is an individualistic process of uncovering, de-tethering, acknowledging/un-acknowledging, evolving, redefining, etc…and, there’s a part of me that wonders if the aforementioned capital T™ is forever to be left as esoteric, arcane, unknowing, impossible, incomprehensible as our own existence, to which we glean as much as we can of whatever distant, shaky fractals we can in-attempt to solve just what in the heck we’re doing here, and/or, who we really are. Like, there’s what I want to believe, and what I actually believe (though, to be clear, that distinction remains forever unharmonious and in-flux as it does in this very moment I write). So, I write a diatribe of unquotable diatribes and misperceives, thinking aloud as to what the nature of our universe’s fabric really is, and more “realistically,” how it can afford me any form of personal, usable insight to help enrich, better the lives of myself and those around me. Round and round, the instinct, the “muscle” of desire remains operable, moving on its own, or…?
The question, of desire…real desires—as opposed to whatever-the-F is the latter, does that mean I’m wanting “more,” in the way of a simplistic ‘not-getting-enough’, or is it, I’m wanting “less,” as in, ‘all of this other stuff is obfuscating what I really want’, i.e. simplification, attenuation, calibration, like the process of solve et coagula…?
Regardless, desire makes me want to think…and, maybe…that’s my trouble.
