A Short Piece on Wanting
There’s much to say about wanting—about needing, yearning, missing, lacking. I’ve been spotting holes in everything lately. The blankets laid over the back of my couch have frayed, leaving knots untied, leaving open spaces. My fingers trace and pull at the holes, worsening the gaps as my mind recalls how the spaces were once filled. I sit, pulling, wondering where to go to escape the wanting of what used to be, of what never was. I hold myself back from crawling under the stairs and smothering myself with pillows until my body lies still and lifeless, not breathing, not wanting.
It’s quite selfish, isn’t it? To have and still want? We drink from an overflowing well and still ache for spring water. Three wishes are granted, but we find four things to wish for. Could desire be a necessary expression of our humanity? Buddhism tells us we fulfill our needs when we accept they will never be fully satisfied. Could it be that easy? Could we tame our wants with a radical acceptance of their perpetuity, stroking the stains they’ve tattooed onto our bellies like a cattle brand? I fear permanency is not enough to quell the drag of wanting, the drag of wondering what comes next.
It seems to be in our design to seek out the faded, blank spaces on the wall where picture frames used to hang. We want to reclaim the emptiness, paint over the squares staring, dusty, reminding us of what once was. We want to shove plaster into the holes where nails have bored down to the plywood. We hang something new and pretend it fits the same. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it fits better. Sometimes it takes the place of the spaces, the dust, the holes. It becomes the spaces, the dust, the holes, screaming at us, louder and louder, until we rip it from the walls, revealing more dust, more space, more holes.
It’s a gamble, wanting. A gamble of nerves, motivation, and ego. If we are made to want, how can we ever know our wants are pure? How can you tell if your wants grow from true desire or habit? And how can you be sure the water that hydrates the soil of your wants is laced with sugar and not poison?
My mind recently has felt increasingly littered with questions and void of answers. There’s much to gain from wanting, but perhaps there is more to lose. I could spend my life staring up into the heavens, fantasizing about a sky with more stars, tracing each constellation to where it would look best. But the stars will not move for me, the constellations will not shift, and eventually, I would be forced to stand, with grass-stained clothes and aching joints, left more deformed than the sky will ever be.
Still, I am stuck grappling with our instinctual wanting, my instinctual wanting. Do I raise my hands in worship of my wants, bowing to them, joining them in their ruthless fight for satisfaction? Or do I raise them in surrender, relinquishing any evidence of desire, denying myself of wanting entirely? Is my search for answers just another want manifesting itself through my words? I want the answers. I want to escape the wanting. I want to not want, yet here I am—still writing, still wondering, still wanting. Could it be that in this perpetual quest lies the essence of our humanity? When there is no absolute truth, does desire offer us the illusion of one, the chance to create our own truth and chase it unrelentingly?
There is so much to want. There is so much to have. Maybe the greatest gratification comes from seeking out the harmony that must exist somewhere between the two. I want to have a final answer to these questions, neatly wrapped up like a present, oversized plastic bow and all. Yet, the pursuit of finality seems to only breed more longing, leaving me to wander within myself, persisting in my quest for understanding. I will continue to seek out what, if anything, is the right way to make peace with our desires. For better or worse, I will continue to want the truth, to want the answers. For better or worse, I will want.