Desire is a problem. Wanting things that are most likely not possible. And the mind keeps nagging away at you, reminding you, ‘Hey, remember that thing that’s really important? You should go and find it, right now.’ And then you remember all the reasons why it’s not going to work out that way. And you have that moment of despair, where you realize the only thing that seems meaningful in the world is beyond your grasp, and there’s no point you even existing. But apparently you lack conviction in that assessment, so you try to push down the feeling and go about your day. But 5 minutes later it’s back at the surface, and you have to go through the whole process again.
I should’ve let go of such desires long ago, and adjusted to the reality, to make the best of things as they are. But no matter how much pointless suffering I cause myself, a major part of me doesn’t want to let go. It wants to keep pedantically clinging to it’s delusional, unrealistic expectations. Because anything less seems meaningless. And without meaning, what’s the point?
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Is desire a problem or fixation?
I find myself fixated on a multitude of things I don’t actually desire.
I think I desire the things I’m strongly fixated on. At least a part of me does. I suppose I also get stuck thinking about things I don’t want. But then that’s usually linked to something I do want, that the things I don’t want make impossible. So for me desire for things that can’t be fulfilled leads to fixation, and unhealthy rumination that causes pointless suffering. And yet I don’t want to give it up, because it feels too essential.
What things are you fixated on that aren’t connected to something you want?
Affirmation for one. I’m perfectly content with my life until i have to turn on the news…or start reading articles on the web….or have to work with other people…I’m perfectly fine living with my own thoughts and desires but then you step too near another human and now suddenly its not just about what you want it’s about what they want…what they expect of you….what biases and prejudices they have of you and the world….what desires they are a proponent of which they themselves have taken from those around them.
I hate that system of nature that spreads ideas and emotions — independent of reason or analysis — through waves of social edification. like a herd of wildebeest goaded to run as a whole through the chain reaction of neighboring reactions.
Maybe my childhood was too personalized and my expectations were offset to reality but that is the situation nevertheless.
Great post, especially the last 3 sentences. Failure to meet our own lofty expectations can be the worst pain a mind can feel, but at least it’s something. At least it’s better than the dull, pointless existence of mediocrity that evidently suffices for 99% of the world.
I say “mediocrity” meaning any state of mind where you don’t feel the desire to be any better than you are. It could apply to a homeless person just as well as a billionaire who wastes the day watching tv and eating caviar. When you lose all desires to achieve something better, that’s when you become unremarkable, average, mediocre.
I’ll go to my grave avoiding that. I know how much it sucks to be deprived of the things you deserve. (Even if you don’t deserve them, hurts as bad.) But it’s what separates you from a fungus growing on the bathroom wall. In fact, I would say that the feeling of desire by itself is always a good thing… it’s only the self-defeating attitude of thinking “that’ll never happen” that hurts so much.
Thanks, though I’m not sure I entirely agree. I think most people are much better at somehow subconsciously readjusting their expectations, and then attaching meaning to whatever their new goal is. They get knocked down, take a while to recalibrate, and then move on. So a life of relative drudgery can still feel significant and worthwhile. For some reason I never worked out how to do that – to mentally adapt to the reality and make the best of things. I never developed that kind of resilience. I’m still clinging to battles I lost in childhood, where any hope of success is long gone. It’s utterly pointless, and nothing good can come from it. But parts of my mind stubbornly insist that it’s essential, so I keep getting dragged back there over and over again.
I’m long past deserving anything good. And yet I’m still causing myself suffering over being unable to find it. Reincarnation as a fungus on a bathroom wall might be an appropriate state for me. The vast majority of human desires do have some healthy outlet that people can work towards. But I’ve managed to develop ones where it’s literally impossible to make it happen, and pointless and unhealthy to pursue in any way. Clever me.
At the risk of sounding like a clueless optimist, I think that obsessive drive for the impossible is an evolutionary “gift”. You’re right that most mentally balanced people can readjust their expectations to accommodate their place in life. But think on an evolutionary scale… what prompted that first fish to flop onto land, or what made that first prehistoric mammal decide to try eating with its hands instead of its face? What I’m saying is that a rare few of any species will fixate on doing something stupid simply because it has the power to dream it up. Most life forms will stay in the middle of the herd, head down, take your lumps and never aspire to anything greater… the fungus on the wall… but call it a gift or a curse, the foolish desire for things that are out of your reach is, in evolutionary terms, what makes the world improve.
Of course the law of nature is a crapshoot, and just because you have this fixation doesn’t mean you’re the chosen one. A zillion fish probably flopped onto land and died in agony before that 1 survived. So maybe you’re right, being wall fungus is the safe bet. But as you pointed out, some of us don’t have a choice. We’ll always obsess over what we don’t have because that’s our programming. I suppose the trick is to channel it into productive use, but if I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t be on a suicide forum ha ha.
Hmmm, I’d go for curse rather than gift, given that those with unhealthy obsessions tend to be more miserable. I recognize that obsessive drive and going out on an extreme limb can pay off from an evolutionary perspective. But that only really applies to things that technically are within reach, but are too risky for most to even contemplate. And even then, mostly such risk takers fail spectacularly. And when they do succeed it rarely provides enough contentment to the individual to make the struggle worth it.
But it doesn’t really apply to drives and motivations that are logically contradictory. For example, a desire to go back and relive the past, doing things differently, would not only depend on time travel being possible (which it doesn’t seem to be), but the ability to transport your present consciousness back to the body of your younger self. But then you’d be stuck with the memories of how things went wrong the first time, which would defeat the entire purpose.
If I was a scientific genius (I’m not), I could obsessively dedicate my life to the pursuit of time travel, potentially generating much useful technology along the way, even if the ultimate goal was technically impossible. But since what I actually want is a completely fresh start, to be free of the awareness of my present life, but also knowing what I need to do differently, there’s no theoretical path forward. The entire thing is logically contradictory, so there would be no direction to go in.
So yeah, it’s hard to know what to do with such pointless obsessions, other than numerous posts on this website. The only other place it seems to take me is destructive – the desire to destroy myself, or this world, or just completely numb myself so the awareness of it all goes away. I may have to start composing extremely angry and poorly written metal songs. Or bad poetry.
lol that’s funny but you actually have a point about writing angsty metal songs. Behind every great metal song I guarantee there was some miserable wretch who was in our shoes, if just for a moment.
It’s also funny that you mentioned time travel because I was once obsessed with the same thought as the only way to fix a mistake I made in the past. I gave up on that idea, not because I think it’s impossible but because since then I’ve done a few good things that would be wiped out if I changed the past.
Either way I get what you’re saying. Evolution-changing ambition only works if it’s a reasonably logical idea, and even then there’s the matter of execution. So, within the rare subset of individuals who have that desire to achieve the impossible, only a smaller, rare subset will succeed while most will be stuck in the hell of wanting but not getting.
Without meaning of some sort, there really is no point. We’re all just a bunch of biological systems functioning according to design.
Reconciling the multitude of needs that come and go is a major pain. The mind wants what it thinks it needs and will continue to demand it, on a schedule that only takes itself into consideration.
A solution? Hell if I know. Well, there is one, possibly, we all know what that is. Often I find comfort in the fact that as these needs arise, they also depart, leaving a sort of resigned calm in their wake. “Hmm, I guess I really didn’t need (Insert need here.)”
Humans want and need, without end. While that’s not really news to anyone, there is an element of hope for me in knowing that these needs, like the tide, ebb and flow, rise and fall, and somedays all I can do is grit my teeth and wait for them to go the heck away, because they always do, temporarily. And some days that’s all I’m gonna get from life.
Yes, I can recognize that wants and needs ebb and flow, in the short term. I guess it’s the fact that they keep coming back that gets to me. Kind of like they’re always there, under the surface, and I spend most of my time trying to forget about them. From minute to minute, there’s clearly points where they’re not present, when my mind is completely distracted with something unrelated. But I would say I very rarely feel calm to any extent. I never get the sense of ‘Hmm, I guess I really didn’t need that after all.’ It’s not so much that the feeling has departed, it’s just been temporarily pushed out by something else. As soon as I get any reminder of the thing, however tangential, the sense of overwhelming need starts to grow again.
But hey, ultimately, everything must end eventually. Nothing lasts forever. At least I hope it doesn’t.