Desire and Acceptance

I haven't written in a week or so. I have been concentrating on some other writing, but the going has been slow there, too. Basically, I am depressed, and it is hard for me to write when I am depressed. Some people, artists, spend their whole lives depressed, creating some of the greatest works this world has ever known. I cannot do that. And then I get depressed by the fact that I am not writing and a terrible spiral ensues.

Desire and acceptance are what I am struggling with. I suppose those are what every human being's problem is, at least with the exception of the Buddha, but he is long dead. Desiring the things I can't have, and not being accepting of the fact that I can't. That is life in a nutshell. From the instant of our birth, the desire for our first gasp of oxygen, and once that is fulfilled, our mother's breast. These are desires the attainment of is necessary to life, but desires none the less. We desire life. So, from the first instant it begins.

And then it grows. After tasting other foods, we are no longer satisfied with the tit. We want something with more texture and flavor. If we get a taste of sugar, forget about it. Nothing else will taste the same. We become little, toddler dope fiends. Then we want toys. We get tired of toys, and we want new toys. With each desire satisfied comes a new one.

Why is this? Why can't we be happy with what we have? A trait necessary to our survival, a longing to better our situation which helped us to get out of the trees and caves and with the struggle to store enough food to survive the winter? A genetic predisposition to never be satisfied, to keep looking forward no matter what, which is no longer needed and now causes nothing but grief? Something akin to isolationism and racism, which severed to ensure the propagation of our lineage and the advancement of our genes? Hating outsiders was great before we had supermarkets and more than enough breeding stock to go around. Now it is pointless. I suppose desire could have had similar benefits. Desire is what made our species the lords of this planet. If a dog has a warm place to sleep, some food, and an occasional scratch or two it is fairly content. We would look for a better place to live. tastier food, and a $2000 massage chair to do our scratching.

There is no end to it. Everywhere I look there is something I want. A house, a car, a phone, a pair of shoes, a woman, a drug...................... the list goes on ad infinitum. If I got one of those things, I would want one of the others, or the newer version of whatever I had attained. I have learned very little in my 42 years, but I have learned that. It is hard to think of myself as ever being content.

But my desires have scaled down. I don't want a Ferrari. I don't want a 22 year old model to sleep with. (Maybe just once, but not to marry) I don't even want to be rich. I want to be happy. I want love. I want to go home. I want to one day write something humanity will find good and remember. These are not extravagant, I don't think. And who knows? Maybe if I actually reached these goals I would be happy and content. Desires to seem to shrink as you get older. Or maybe acceptance grows stronger. Maybe you can reach an equilibrium between desire and acceptance, desiring mainly what is reachable and accepting the fact that most things are out of reach. I don't know. Part of the difficulty for me is the things I most desire are pretty much out of my control.

I don't have much else. I am trying to get out of the rut I am and get back in the swing of things. This is me getting my feet wet and back into the practice of writing. I have had people writing and asking me what is going on, so I wanted to tell them. Someday I will be happy again and the words will flow.