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The more we attempt to assert ourselves, the more we tend to fight for the same things. dominance through conquest.
This is odd: to declare ourselves “different” is a means of attaining uniqueness through capturing the same flag everyone else is chasing. This is not different, merely successful.
To be unique want something else. Otherwise you measure yourself against others fickle, negotiable, shallow desires
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What portion of our pursuits are motivated by anxiety and fear?
Is our level of optimization equal to our stress?
If this number is high we are operating from a place of fear rather than a) the curiosity of our potential or b) the drive toward thick and beneficial desires.
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You’ve heard happiness is a choice, but don’t believe it.
When we pursue status and toys we lose happiness.
Happiness is fleeting and only arrives when you desublimate (cease to be self-aware).
Caught in your desire, you are engrossed in what "you" want.
Happiness requires you to lose yourself in the present, which is a choice to no longer want.
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Being smart is hard. Feeling is easy.
We like to read books that offer an illusion of understanding: clever detective-esque inquiries with a tidy revelation.
Between our repetitious “A-to-B” obligations, we don’t have to think: we consume the book/podcast’s form of thought without doing the act of critical thinking.
And yet, this escapist distraction away from emotion allows productivity in the sense of pacified inner turmoil: existing between thinking and feeling.
This placebo intelligence is often preferable to the chaos of continually existing in your heart or head.
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How do you know what to fight against until it appears and is defined?
The isolated tribe cannot defend against the capitalist hegemonic state until it grasps the model of destabilization and desire introduced from the contact. (How could you imagine this in advance?)
While you can target all outsiders (strangers) as enemies in preemptive defense, the more subversive model is a subliminal natural desire.
For instance: The oedipal complex names your unconscious desires, allowing you to defend and socialize against them.
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The therapist helps you uncover your subconscious drives. The fetishist knows their drives and bypasses social normalization (productive socialization) to scratch their itch.
The fetishist embraces libido over societal mores, which champions excessive difference without needing to understand the motivation.
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To distinguish between "want" and "wish" is typically easy, but parsing between "desire" and "pleasure," or "obligation" and "commitment," reveals a profound distinction: your motivation and expectation.
For instance: An obligation is something you must do whether you want to or not. A commitment is a promise you keep out of a sense of honor. You are "obligated" to go to work tomorrow. You "commit" when you say your wedding vows.
For instance: "Desire" is a compulsion to seek. "Pleasure" is finding enjoyment in the present.
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Having a purpose in your life provides an orientation point, but people fundamentally want to feel alive. (That is to have your inner sensation and bodily sense engaged and aligned to experience rapture.)
Feeling alive happens when we chase meaning or mystery. Any purpose will do; what we want is pursuit.
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I always want to jump in, to defend myself or others, interrupting the unfolding tension and drama.
But just wait. Give the other person the courtesy of completing their tale: rest in the tension because the outcome may surprise you.
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If desire produces more desire, then our desire is to chase desire itself. It’s all about the pursuit, with the goal itself being sort of made up along the way.
If we speak of an economy modeled on how desire works, we chase money for money.
Economic value is not in the commodity (object) we pursue but in the pursuit of more. The pursuit of excess.
