Desire

Desire is the closest thing there is to magic. Nothing else changes the world so powerfully, so quickly. Nothing else builds empires or families or great works of art. Nothing else rearranges my perception so fully, making some things salient and others basically invisible. Even in spiritual lineages dedicated to ending desire entirely, the startin... See more

Desire is actually magic, as far as I've seen. I can't count how many times I've watched people hone and shape and pour time and energy into their desires, only to have that desire appear in their life through weird, non-linear, frankly baffling ways — ways that include but don’t easily reduce to the work they’ve put in. The stream of creation seem... See more

So are there ‘authentic’ desires? One of the roots of the word authentic is ‘author’. Are any of us authors of our own desires? Yes, we can be. You might not be the sole author of your desires, but you can certainly take ownership and put your mark of authorship on them through your creative freedom.

Most of all: know where your desires came from. Your desires have a history. You can’t know what a ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ desire is unless you understand where it came from – and that involves diving deep into your past, understanding how you have evolved as a person, and seeing which desires have been with you for a long time and which ones have co... See more

To gain more control over your desires, figure out what your particular version of the Michelin Guide looks like. It might not involve stars at all, but the approval of specific people or the expectations of your friends or family; or the awkwardness of sharing with others that you have always wanted to do something that not many people would under... See more

Desire (as opposed to need) is an intellectual appetite for things that you perceive to be good, but that you have no physical, instinctual basis for wanting – and that’s true whether those things are actually good or not.

There is always something else to strive for – and this keeps most of us in a constant, sometimes painful, state of never-satisfied striving. And that striving for something that we do not yet possess is called desire. Desire doesn’t bring us joy because it is, by definition, always for something we feel we lack.