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“desire is a memory of happiness, fear is a memory of pain” Buddhist proverb
Yet, according to Lacan, we often desire what we have never had: it is the object of our desire that causes us pain by our inability to possess it completely.
The separation from our supposed happiness is our pain, and our fear is the loss of this painful striving: without pursuit we lose purpose, our greatest fear is losing ourselves.
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It’s often the case that there is no universally accepted best solution, so we must create our own path. What’s more interesting is the hidden motivations we produce and nurture that go against common sense, but that we dare not reveal.
Of course, we usually follow the norm when it comes to things like physics or social constructs, but when it comes to personal matters such as family, business, or sex, we often encounter conflicting desires.
However, when we find someone who shares our fantastical desires, it makes us feel alive, which is beyond common sense.
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What if all tension comes from demanding your way? That means we are anxious because we want, so we strive to make it happen.
From objects to status to emotional manipulation, we must stretch ourselves out to accommodate our desires, risking a sudden snapping return and stung ego.
It seems our entire economy is predicated upon people stretching and remaining taught with potential energy until they eventually lose elasticity.
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One thing Buddhist masters figured out was that you cannot control the mind, thoughts, or emotions. However, people cannot give up trying, so you have to force the issue.
The first step is to tell somebody not to desire. After trying not to desire (to control desire) the student will say “I no longer desire.”
The teacher will point out, “you now desire not to desire.”
The paradox of control is to always end up within a larger process: You think you were having an “experience” but it is all experience. Your refined, increased control only proves your rigidity and what you cannot control.
The only way to teach this concept is not intellectual: you must speed up the eventual failure, which will -then- allow one to relax and see differently.
From from [[Alan Watts]]
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Empathy for those less fortunate leads to pleas for benevolent altruism: Universal basic, open borders, or reallocated police funding.
Taken further, all structure and any limitation is oppression: empathetically, anyone should have whatever they want whenever they want it.
This becomes anarchy or chaos unless by design the people are so dull that they only desire what they are told, or so enlightened they can self-regulate.
Unfortunately, denuded of limits out of a desire for freedom, we become oppressed by our neighbors, collapsing standards, and bankrupt infrastructure. (oppressed by others and circumstances)
This hyper-empathy mistakes Isaiah Berlin’s negative liberty (freedom from restraint) and positive liberty (freedom to self-determine): the paradox of allowing self-determination is that it will infringe on the rights of others.
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The scapegoat is chosen, but often, out of convenience. It is the shock of pinning the tail that becomes the story, which is what allows the tragedy to continue.
The story is what is needed, not the pricking and the marking, but the gross action sates (and creates) the sordid desire.
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Narrating to yourself is insanity.
Your reaction to something is potent, and a story forms.
To return to normal you must re-narrate in excruciating detail with multiple hypothetical and alternate scenarios who you are, which is really only who you want to be.
Who “you” are is a market of competing desires, each shouting their “story of you,” to which some other version of you is repeatedly having to self-talk all your selves back into the shape you recognize.
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We have notions about who we are and what we would like to be.
To become requires being adamant and being championed by others around you.
You must constantly remind yourself (who you want to be) and be grateful that others allow your being, that is your agency to produce yourself in the way you wish.
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Often, we avoid other people, not wanting to encounter them and the proceeding interactions.
We claim to want to avoid them for a myriad of reasons, but this is in large part because others are a mirror: when you have an aversion to yourself, you avoid those who accurately reflect you.
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At one point, wanting to fulfill your potential requires work, but you also want a peaceful and relaxed life, which -if misinterpreted- denies effort.
To satisfy both desires requires “work” and “not-work”: a seemingly impossible contradiction.
However, doing excellent work to meet your potential during half of the day generates fulfillment over the next half.
In a reinterpretation, we do not have to be totalizing; we can be granted relaxation and labor for ambition to fulfill both desires, but perhaps not simultaneously.
