David, over at Dispatches from Dystopia, has passed on a challenge that is right up my alley. “Once a week I will post 2 quotes on a topic, pick 3 bloggers to post on a topic of my choosing and choose a topic of their own.” David chose Desire for the challenge.

Rules:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you. (Thank you, David!)
2. List the rules. (Done)
3. Share your favorite quotes on the relevant topic.
4. Nominate other bloggers.

The challenge was started by someone named Rory, but I’m not linking to him because it looks like his blog is about him and his dog with not a trace of kink. It was passed to David by Succulent Savage, so if you don’t know Mr. and Mrs. McDaddy, you might want to check them out too.

I really am going to do this once a week, and if there are topics you’d like to see quotes about, just let me know, I’m happy to oblige! I’m probably not going to nominate 3 bloggers every week, at least I don’t think I am, but I’ll do it this week to start the fun. I nominate:

Jz at A Reluctant Bitch because this is also your kind of challenge, my erudite friend.

Jade at The Chrysanthemum and The Sword because it fits your academic background and may serve as a distraction.

Edited to add: The topic for your quotes is “Appreciation.”

You, wherever you blog, if it looks like something you’d enjoy. I couldn’t pick among everyone else I know.

Ok. Desire. Here we go.

“Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or a need, to engage this unknown, while anxiety suggests a fear of it. Desire takes one out of oneself, into the possibility or relationship, but it also takes one deeper into oneself. Anxiety turns one back on oneself, but only onto the self that is already known.” 
― Mark Epstein, Open to Desire: Embracing a Lust for Life – Insights from Buddhism and Psychotherapy

“Desire makes life happen. Makes it matter. Makes everything worth it. Desire is life. Hunger to see the next sunrise or sunset, to touch the one you love, to try again.

‘Hell would be waking up and wanting nothing,’ he agrees.”

— Karen Marie Moning, Shadowfever

It’s interesting, isn’t it? Desire. I have some clients who seem to have no desire for anything – young people who, theoretically, have everything going for them, but lack the will, the motivation, the desire to move toward anything. That lack is paralyzing.

At the same time, we know that desire is often at the root of misery. Wanting things to be different than they are. Wanting to have things, wanting to have reached our goals, wanting life to be different Lots of potential for suffering tied up in desire. And yet… not having desire for anything doesn’t bring happiness. Not the way I see it in my clients, which is a kind of numbness.

So maybe the secret is to have desire and then be able to transcend that? As if you have to feel it first to truly be able to let of it? Or maybe there’s a theoretical balance where you feel desire but can acknowledge that it’s just desire and then move beyond it? Recognize that the “i wants” are just that, our own wants and not mandates? Maybe it’s about keeping them in “right perspective.”

Hmph, I was trying to find something about “right perspective,” which I think is an actual thing, but couldn’t find what I was looking for. So I’ll define it for myself, in this context anyhow.

Desire isn’t bad, it motivates us, and that’s helpful. At the same time, we need to be able to recognize that most of our desires are small, self-absorbed preoccupations that aren’t important in the greater scheme of the universe. And that’s ok. There’s nothing wrong with wanting what you want. It’s only a problem if you think it more important than a lot of other things that are actually more important.

There. Not very eloquent or deep, but real. I’m up too early again, going back to bed now. Later…