Needs, Wants, Desires
What do I need?
I need to be happy.
I need to be fulfilled.
I need to have a sense of purpose.
I need to feel safe.
I need to be independent.
With that last one, I wonder. Do I need to be independent? Or do I want? I don't know. So, what do I want?
I want to be rich.
I want to be happy.
I want to do something good with my life.
Wow. Wanting to be rich, brain? Really? When you just spent a couple hours worth of thought cycles thinking about how unhealthy your relationship with money is?
But rich means safety, and independence. I do not want to do what I do for a living. It is not who I am. But it is money. It is safety, and it is independence. The money I make keeps me comfortable, but not happy. If I had more money, would I be both comfortable and happy? Not from the money alone, but from what the money allowed me to do, maybe.
But I know myself. If I am not doing what I want and need to be doing now, money won't make a difference. It won't give me more desire. And I am deeply, purely motivated by desire.
So, what do I desire?
I desire power. Both within myself and external to myself. Not over others, but over my environment.
I desire purpose. I need, want, and desire purpose. So why haven't I created it for myself yet?
I desire ease. That's why. I associate purpose with lack of ease. I associate it with stress.
I desire love.
I desire desire.
I desire beauty.
My desires are both pure hedonism and absolutely practical. These are the things I truly want in order to be happy. They are basic, and yet incredibly difficult to reach for.
I fight my desires more than I fight anything else in my life.
Fuck you, Puritanism.
How do I break that seal? I've done it before. I tried to keep myself tied down to a way of life I hated, for a long time, in Portland. I tried to fight my desires with my wants and needs. I broke that pattern, left the prison I had built for myself. How did I do it?
The first thought that comes into my mind is that I left.
Is that what I want?
I always leave.
Is that what I need?
I feel no desire to leave.
I want to build a purpose within myself. The life I have now is me, in a pretty fundamental way. I've crafted a lot of possibility around myself, in a very gentle, easy way. I've done a lot of healing here. I've done a lot of miraculous things here.
Why do I question my ability to do more?
Why am I afraid of James? Why, when I think of my ability to do more, do I immediately start to think of dating?
Am I proud of myself?
Not really.
Should I be?
I am less than I could be. I am unfulfilled potential. I am lazy, and fearful. I might not be bad, but I am not aggressively good. The purpose I desire is a selfless one. When I think of what role I want to step into, it's often that of savior. A practical, quiet sort of savior. But still. I want to bring education to the masses. I want to bring POTENTIAL to the rest of the world. I want to give every child the exposure to knowledge that they need to build themselves into the next savior, the next leader, the next hope.
When I think about it, though, it's always on a grand scale. An impersonal scale. I don't want to teach each individual child. I just want to give them the opportunity to teach themselves. I don't have any faith that they will be taught by others. But if given the choice, how many kids would do what I did, and grab onto whatever knowledge was available to them, to craft their own lives and beliefs?
I need to be happy.
I need to be fulfilled.
I need to have a sense of purpose.
I need to feel safe.
I need to be independent.
With that last one, I wonder. Do I need to be independent? Or do I want? I don't know. So, what do I want?
I want to be rich.
I want to be happy.
I want to do something good with my life.
Wow. Wanting to be rich, brain? Really? When you just spent a couple hours worth of thought cycles thinking about how unhealthy your relationship with money is?
But rich means safety, and independence. I do not want to do what I do for a living. It is not who I am. But it is money. It is safety, and it is independence. The money I make keeps me comfortable, but not happy. If I had more money, would I be both comfortable and happy? Not from the money alone, but from what the money allowed me to do, maybe.
But I know myself. If I am not doing what I want and need to be doing now, money won't make a difference. It won't give me more desire. And I am deeply, purely motivated by desire.
So, what do I desire?
I desire power. Both within myself and external to myself. Not over others, but over my environment.
I desire purpose. I need, want, and desire purpose. So why haven't I created it for myself yet?
I desire ease. That's why. I associate purpose with lack of ease. I associate it with stress.
I desire love.
I desire desire.
I desire beauty.
My desires are both pure hedonism and absolutely practical. These are the things I truly want in order to be happy. They are basic, and yet incredibly difficult to reach for.
I fight my desires more than I fight anything else in my life.
Fuck you, Puritanism.
How do I break that seal? I've done it before. I tried to keep myself tied down to a way of life I hated, for a long time, in Portland. I tried to fight my desires with my wants and needs. I broke that pattern, left the prison I had built for myself. How did I do it?
The first thought that comes into my mind is that I left.
Is that what I want?
I always leave.
Is that what I need?
I feel no desire to leave.
I want to build a purpose within myself. The life I have now is me, in a pretty fundamental way. I've crafted a lot of possibility around myself, in a very gentle, easy way. I've done a lot of healing here. I've done a lot of miraculous things here.
Why do I question my ability to do more?
Why am I afraid of James? Why, when I think of my ability to do more, do I immediately start to think of dating?
Am I proud of myself?
Not really.
Should I be?
I am less than I could be. I am unfulfilled potential. I am lazy, and fearful. I might not be bad, but I am not aggressively good. The purpose I desire is a selfless one. When I think of what role I want to step into, it's often that of savior. A practical, quiet sort of savior. But still. I want to bring education to the masses. I want to bring POTENTIAL to the rest of the world. I want to give every child the exposure to knowledge that they need to build themselves into the next savior, the next leader, the next hope.
When I think about it, though, it's always on a grand scale. An impersonal scale. I don't want to teach each individual child. I just want to give them the opportunity to teach themselves. I don't have any faith that they will be taught by others. But if given the choice, how many kids would do what I did, and grab onto whatever knowledge was available to them, to craft their own lives and beliefs?
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