The Nature of Desire
Desire is equivalent to pain. It is to yearn for something we do not have. However, it’s also never fulfilled. For the moment we achieve or get the thing we want; the desire shifts and moves to a different thing. It’s very similar to a cat and a laser pointer, once the feline catches the dot, he looks and realizes that the object of desire is now somewhere else causing the cat to chase it to the point of total physical and mental exhaustion.
This goes on and on until the cat realizes the illusory nature of the red dot, which in our case, is the very sense of desire in and of itself. Now, this doesn’t mean we can’t, or shouldn’t ever experience desire. It means that if a desire is causing us too much pain, misery, or heartache, then we can take control of the laser pointer ourselves, and focus the light on something we want, but may have forgotten we already have.
This life hack is very similar to the scene in the Matrix where Neo is told the truth, that there is no spoon. The boy tells him “it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.” So in this case, we can bend our consciousness in such a way where we shine our beam of desire onto something we’ve already achieved. No matter how great or small, if you can appreciate it, it’s worth being grateful for, it’s worth it to continue to want to have the thing, achievement, or experience.
In doing this, we can ease the despair and pain that accompany desire with gratitude and contentment. Some people do these gratitude exercises as a daily meditation to keep centered. A conglomeration of various works, from self-help authors to gurus, books, and fictional movies served as the inspiration for this post. Time can also play a major role in this because desire generally tends to rely upon a future event, and so we feel pain because we're stuck in the present. Click to read more thoughts on time.
A desire for something is simultaneously an experience of lack, is it not? I want/desire something I don't (or think I don't) have. The hacks are great, and they calm the burning fires. It is also possible to investigate this inner sense of lack and face it full on. How else to understand wtf it is? And without understanding its origins and causes (within the framework of one's own psycho-emotional life experiences), isn't it likely that the desire will re-emerge in a more disguised, subtle form?
Yes, I would agree that it's either lack or a perceived sense of lack.
Sure, I think many times we're doing these temporary fulfillments of desire because of brain chemistry. A while back I saw a talk that I really resonated with. The guy suggested that our brains are idling at different speeds, some folks having a good air fuel ratio causing a healthy idle and others not so much. The end result is you have people w/o the optimal air/fuel ratio that will be more prone to self-medicating whether it be cycles of drugs, alcohol, food, sex, love, spending sprees, etc. If one's brain chemistry is in such a way that they're always attempting to sate a dopamine imbalance by doing this or that it could explain the true reason for many sources of desire.
If it's a desire for something that one truly needs it may not re-emerge, but if it's about righting the air/fuel mixture in the brain, then it will be never-ending causing us to do physical things to sate it. Whether it be making a purchase, doing drugs or alcohol, eating, or sex and relationships. With the gratitude technique in this article, one may be self-administering a dopamine hit without having to do something external to achieve it. I don't know if this will work for all of the people all of the time, but it should at the very least work for some of the people some of the time and many times people may just need it at crucial moments. We all experience highs and lows in life, and I think this is worth trying on the low days or until a balance is achieved. They say everything in moderation, so whether or not it should be a daily meditation is debatable. See if the exercise itself is just a temporary fix, then it too can become an addiction or a replacement for one, hopefully one with less real-world consequences.
I think there are a number of ways of dissecting anything, including the 'nature' of desire. For my way of thinking, a 'desire' corresponds with an inner sense of 'lack'. In other words, the desire is an outwards projection of an 'inner hole'; or the seeking of fullFILLment from an external source.
I make a distinction between desires and needs as perhaps two sides of the same coin. Perhaps the Desire is this sense of need which seeks gratification on the outside (never ending seeking/excitement/disappointment; disguised through control or manipulation; 'needy'); and perhaps the Need is more fundamental. We have basic needs as kids (attention, protection, mirroring - see image below, from Healing The Child Within by Charles Whitfield) and for most people (80%+??) these needs are NOT met as children. This is extremely traumatic and it leaves a gaping hole which seems to get bigger into adulthood. This hole gives birth to desire - the urge to seek gratification (to have those unmet needs met by the outside world, partners, friends, animals blah blah - and by force or manipulation if necessary).
These unmet needs from childhood can be met in the present moment. This is an internal process which acknowledges 'desire' and the urge to seek gratification, but it takes responsibility for oneself, understands wtf these unmet needs are and what their effect on current state of being is. Once understood at the psycho-emotional level of one's life experience, these needs are potentially then able to be met by the person him/herself without seeking gratification on the outside. The connections between one's unmet needs from childhood and the seeking of external gratification (sometimes heavily disguised, sometimes naked) become clear.
Sure, that's what I meant by "The hacks are great, and they calm the burning fires." However I think this is also a question of how deep one wishes to go. Applying a 'fix' brings temporary solace, but the underlying issue is still present, beneath the surface and influencing in the background - the malaise. Reaching deep inside to the core of the issue allows for a process of reprogramming/release. One is able to actually free oneself from much of this malaise - not as a balm, not temporarily.
A wise man on the blockchain (whose resteem of your post got me here, hence doubly appropriate :) once stated: Pain is mandatory, but Suffering is optional!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts(-in-time :), and for triggering some of mine 🔆.
Thanks for your reply @barge, I'm going to have to check into that stuff to get a better understanding, it sounds like it will be a worthwhile read but I'm hoping I'll find audio content from the author. I tried to no avail to find the talk where the guy made that analogy about the brain and the resting dopamine levels. I'm kicking myself now for not saving it, as it was a concept I never heard of. If I ever do find it, I'll be sure to send it your way.
Highly rEsteemed!
Thanks Sir!
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