When I want something, I rarely consider to examine why I want it or where the desire came from.
Our world is full of man-made environments designed to extract value (especially monetary value) from its inhabitants to benefit their creators. Why is the grocery store the way that it is? Why are the aisles put in certain places and not others? Or what about a casino? How is the floor design set up?
If you let yourself be influenced and led by the environment, where are the most common places you end up?
Most likely, you’d find yourself wanting things that you didn’t even know existed before you walked in the door.
The people who created these environments–those business executives who stand to profit–find ways to ignite your desire. They present their products in attractive ways.
Desire comes from an emptiness, a lack; anyone who has read Jacques Lacan would know more about this than I do. There is a sense of incompleteness about being human that will always be there, even when we are full or satisfied. There are always ways in which we are deficient, lacking, and devoid. Our consumerist society wants us to fall in love with this part of ourselves, commit to this part of ourselves and make a lifestyle of it. We are never reminded of just how much we have, how much we don’t need, how much of what we desired we actually came to attain. We are only ever reminded that we are not whole, and we need to consume.
This gets a little muddy when we try to apply it to a romantic relationship. But, there are a lot of striking similarities that one should consider to get yourself in touch with what YOU truly want, not what the world wants you to want.
While desire is a part of normal healthy relationships, any person who triggers desire in you most likely has, or pretends to have, a quality that you don’t and that you want for yourself. Our conditioned response is to launch into trying to possess that person or thing.
But, desire really only ever desires itself. Desire is only consumed with ITS’ wants and needs; it is a distinct entity which has a residence inside of us. Anything which ignites our desire will only ever incite just that: a craving. When we interact with a desired object, it gives us an anxiety, a motivation, a wanting. That is what it gives us. If it had the ability to satisfy us, we wouldn’t need or want it so desperately when in its presence.
When I get something I need, I become free. Not so with desire. Desire can never deliver on what it promises. If it delivered on its promises, we would stop thinking about it once we have attained the object of desire.
In the case of people, if I feel at ease, comfortable in my own skin, able to express myself around a certain person, this teaches me to expect more of the same when I interact with them in the future. If, on the other hand, someone ignites an intense desire, I can also expect more of the same: more desiring. More anxiety.
Depression is a recognition that desire failed you. The constant disappointments add up. You don’t want anything, because the act of wanting failed you. And so, your system shuts down completely after wanting the wrong things for so long.
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