The trilogy of lacking...part three
I have already covered lack of direction and lack of focus. All that remains is to tackle lack of desire, which is probably the most insidious of all. I don't really feel much like writing about it, as it only seems to lead to despair, but sometimes you need to take that journey. Why is lack of desire such a dangerous trap to find yourself in? In order to find direction, or focus, or almost anything else you have to want it. Without the desire, the passion, or whatever you want to call it, its unlikely you'll ever get up from the couch long enough to accomplish much of anything.
Beyond anyone else on the planet, the filthy rich, the naturally talented, anyone, I envy those who know what they want from life. I envy those with dreams, even unfulfilled dreams. I've never had that. Sure, I've had interests. There are things I obsess over from time to time, but they are fleeting, temporary things. Although I pursue them for a while, get excited about them for a while I don't have that driving passion. Is it an inability to commit? Maybe I've always expected something more than I find. There are a lot of things in this world that never live up to the expectations we have of them. Passion and drive may be like this. My perceptions, having been colored by the clear-cut drive of fictional characters, may have left me cruelly unprepared for the reality of the situation. I don't think that's really it, though. The problem with accepting this type of reasoning is this I've been there before. When I said that I've never felt that sort of all consuming passion, it wasn't exactly accurate. To clarify, although I've never felt that all-consuming drive, in terms of direction, I have been in love before. I was not really intending to enter into a discourse on the nature of love, but I seem to have wound up here anyway.
Love is a strange and amazing thing, and as with all things capable of bringing great pleasure, it may bring with it great pain. I think, or at least my experience tells me that the first serious love affair of your life is the worst. We are so open, so vulnerable and so amazingly willing to put everything on the line that heartbreak is almost inevitable. But you learn something. Something about life, about love, and about yourself, so when the next time rolls around you're better prepared. Not that it matters much. The options are simple, you either put up emotional barriers to protect yourself, or you risk going through the pain all over again. The innocence, however, never comes back. Even if you're capable of putting yourself on the line time after time, you know, somewhere in the back of your mind, that there is the potential for pain hiding just around the corner. I've never been one who can easily risk myself like that. The sheer awkwardness of putting this into words is, even now, driving me crazy, but I think this is one of those roads I have to commit to following now. To try and detach myself at this point would just drive this experiment to failure.
I made the transition from adolescent romance to serious relationship during my first few years of college, and like many first loves it ended badly. Of course we claim to be friends still, but the remaining emotional debris makes a normal relationship difficult at best. There is a saying that goes, "There is nothing like falling in love for the first time," and while that may be the case, it certainly leaves a good deal unsaid. By the end I was a wreck, and hiding in a protective shell, which was most likely doubling as a prison, but I wasn't looking to get out. Into this mess walked, unexpectedly, the wonderful woman who would years later become my wife. She, probably unknowlingly, helped me put things back together, and it was this process that really became the foundation of trust which allowed me to relate to her. It was certainly very different from the first time, and thankfully so. The first time I felt a lot like I had been caught in a sinkhole and the ground I was standing on was disappearing rapidly. There's a tendency to call this a time of "fireworks", but it's a lot more like the feeling in your stomach when you're falling from a very tall building. The second time was as different from that as night is from day. I was moving again, but rather than plunging I felt more like I was moving to a safe place. It's a little hard to explain, but the relationship I was building, which started so awkwardly, was slowly growing around me. It was not really tearing down my barriers, but absorbing them. As the years have gone by I find I have fewer and fewer left standing. There are a few left, some remaining scars, but far fewer. Am I describing a safe and boring relationship? No. Although I have my issues, and still hide behind some walls, there are times, when the walls fall, that there is a very strong connection between us. In fact, I think the "fireworks" are more meaningful and powerful now. It would be a lie to say that the fire which burns so brightly at the start of a relationship continues to burn at the same intensity forever. I don't think it could sustain itself. My wife and I have been married for four years now, and I would say that I've now lost count of the number of times I've fallen in love with her. Love is a constant thing, but being in love is a state of mind that comes and goes. If you spend too much time chasing the fireworks, you'll miss the beauty of the moments in between.
And the price of tea in China? There is a connection here that I've been building toward. I want to wake up in the morning with a sense of purpose. I desperately want to want something. This I've never felt, and I must now ask the question of whether I will ever feel that. I see a distinct difference between relationships and direction, but this may be an illusion. If I, at least now, have a tendency toward emotional detachment, isn't it likely that this would also affect my commitment toward choosing a direction? Probably. Maybe I know that I've lost something and part of me wants it back. I don't know exactly. Maybe these dreams are of a different sort, but just like matters of love, by the time we've grown up and the time comes to make these decisions, our dreams have been crushed so many times we've put up different walls. I would suspect that I's a combination of the two. We know it's dangerous to want things, and we know that a lot of dreams never come true, so what's the point in wanting anything at all. Knowing, this maybe some progress can be made. It's not about falling madly in love with some direction. It's about building that relationship, cultivating the desire and refusing to give up on it or to allow fear to get in the way. To be honest, there's so many pieces of ideas hanging around right now I can't even begin to pick them up, but I think that there's a little more order than when I started. I'm just too worn out to continue right now.
Beyond anyone else on the planet, the filthy rich, the naturally talented, anyone, I envy those who know what they want from life. I envy those with dreams, even unfulfilled dreams. I've never had that. Sure, I've had interests. There are things I obsess over from time to time, but they are fleeting, temporary things. Although I pursue them for a while, get excited about them for a while I don't have that driving passion. Is it an inability to commit? Maybe I've always expected something more than I find. There are a lot of things in this world that never live up to the expectations we have of them. Passion and drive may be like this. My perceptions, having been colored by the clear-cut drive of fictional characters, may have left me cruelly unprepared for the reality of the situation. I don't think that's really it, though. The problem with accepting this type of reasoning is this I've been there before. When I said that I've never felt that sort of all consuming passion, it wasn't exactly accurate. To clarify, although I've never felt that all-consuming drive, in terms of direction, I have been in love before. I was not really intending to enter into a discourse on the nature of love, but I seem to have wound up here anyway.
Love is a strange and amazing thing, and as with all things capable of bringing great pleasure, it may bring with it great pain. I think, or at least my experience tells me that the first serious love affair of your life is the worst. We are so open, so vulnerable and so amazingly willing to put everything on the line that heartbreak is almost inevitable. But you learn something. Something about life, about love, and about yourself, so when the next time rolls around you're better prepared. Not that it matters much. The options are simple, you either put up emotional barriers to protect yourself, or you risk going through the pain all over again. The innocence, however, never comes back. Even if you're capable of putting yourself on the line time after time, you know, somewhere in the back of your mind, that there is the potential for pain hiding just around the corner. I've never been one who can easily risk myself like that. The sheer awkwardness of putting this into words is, even now, driving me crazy, but I think this is one of those roads I have to commit to following now. To try and detach myself at this point would just drive this experiment to failure.
I made the transition from adolescent romance to serious relationship during my first few years of college, and like many first loves it ended badly. Of course we claim to be friends still, but the remaining emotional debris makes a normal relationship difficult at best. There is a saying that goes, "There is nothing like falling in love for the first time," and while that may be the case, it certainly leaves a good deal unsaid. By the end I was a wreck, and hiding in a protective shell, which was most likely doubling as a prison, but I wasn't looking to get out. Into this mess walked, unexpectedly, the wonderful woman who would years later become my wife. She, probably unknowlingly, helped me put things back together, and it was this process that really became the foundation of trust which allowed me to relate to her. It was certainly very different from the first time, and thankfully so. The first time I felt a lot like I had been caught in a sinkhole and the ground I was standing on was disappearing rapidly. There's a tendency to call this a time of "fireworks", but it's a lot more like the feeling in your stomach when you're falling from a very tall building. The second time was as different from that as night is from day. I was moving again, but rather than plunging I felt more like I was moving to a safe place. It's a little hard to explain, but the relationship I was building, which started so awkwardly, was slowly growing around me. It was not really tearing down my barriers, but absorbing them. As the years have gone by I find I have fewer and fewer left standing. There are a few left, some remaining scars, but far fewer. Am I describing a safe and boring relationship? No. Although I have my issues, and still hide behind some walls, there are times, when the walls fall, that there is a very strong connection between us. In fact, I think the "fireworks" are more meaningful and powerful now. It would be a lie to say that the fire which burns so brightly at the start of a relationship continues to burn at the same intensity forever. I don't think it could sustain itself. My wife and I have been married for four years now, and I would say that I've now lost count of the number of times I've fallen in love with her. Love is a constant thing, but being in love is a state of mind that comes and goes. If you spend too much time chasing the fireworks, you'll miss the beauty of the moments in between.
And the price of tea in China? There is a connection here that I've been building toward. I want to wake up in the morning with a sense of purpose. I desperately want to want something. This I've never felt, and I must now ask the question of whether I will ever feel that. I see a distinct difference between relationships and direction, but this may be an illusion. If I, at least now, have a tendency toward emotional detachment, isn't it likely that this would also affect my commitment toward choosing a direction? Probably. Maybe I know that I've lost something and part of me wants it back. I don't know exactly. Maybe these dreams are of a different sort, but just like matters of love, by the time we've grown up and the time comes to make these decisions, our dreams have been crushed so many times we've put up different walls. I would suspect that I's a combination of the two. We know it's dangerous to want things, and we know that a lot of dreams never come true, so what's the point in wanting anything at all. Knowing, this maybe some progress can be made. It's not about falling madly in love with some direction. It's about building that relationship, cultivating the desire and refusing to give up on it or to allow fear to get in the way. To be honest, there's so many pieces of ideas hanging around right now I can't even begin to pick them up, but I think that there's a little more order than when I started. I'm just too worn out to continue right now.
posted by brian at 11:02 PM
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