SHORT-CUT DESIRE
SEPTEMBER 20, 2011. People look for what they desire, they fasten on to something, they pursue it, and then they express disappointment somewhere along the line. They tend to attribute their regret to a lack of strategy or follow-through, but that’s not it. Not really.
The problem came right at the beginning. The desire they picked out of a hat was superficial, it didn’t engage them at a deep enough level.
But going to the necessary level seems to have its own problems.
“Suppose what I find there is too formidable? Suppose I can’t make it work? Suppose other people will think I’m weird?” Suppose, suppose, suppose.
Well, what did you think life was? Picking a better shade of nail polish? Buying a slightly more attractive doily than the last doily? Watering the lawn with a hose that has a wider spray? Seeing a movie in 3-D rather than 2-D? Replacing the picture of a saint on your mantle with a larger picture of the saint?
Exhaustion and burn-out occur when you’re pursuing a desire you don’t really want.
Modern society mainly consists of finding activities that nudge adrenaline, after burnout has already occurred.
Faced with all this, many people decide desire itself is a misdirection. Instead, they should be rising above all desire, or they should spend all their time tending to the needs of others.
I’m not demeaning helping others. But suppose this is the real formulation: “I’ve given up on myself, so the only thing left is to assist everyone else.” How does that sound? Or how about this: “I can’t summon up energy for my own life, so I’ll find energy in the struggles of others.”
In case it isn’t obvious, there has never been a time when the struggles of others weren’t a crisis. It isn’t just today. And giving aid and assistance is a good thing. But when it becomes a substitute for self, and when somebody gets the idea he needs to reduce himself to zero in order to be of service, that’s a different story.
What I’m talking about is stagnation of self. Things appear pretty much the same every day. It doesn’t look like there is a way out. But what’s actually happening is this: the person has built up many layers of cotton between himself and what he really wants.
And woven into those layers are all sorts of reasons why, even if he did discover what he truly wants, he can’t move forward and get it.
Several years ago, I ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in 30 years. The last time I knew him, he was a musician and a very good one. He’d taken up an instrument one day, when he was thirteen, and in a few months he’d made remarkable progress. He was very talented and very smart. Well, in the interim, from what I could gather, he’d been through three or four careers—none of them particularly rewarding. And now he was a blank. He’d gone down some “spiritual path,” and it was an energy drain.
There he was. Taking on one lesser desire after another.
All present realities are shams, in the sense that what has yet to be discovered and created is far more galvanizing than what already exists.
If you’re going to pick a struggle, let it begin with finding something you REALLY desire.
Jon Rappoport
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