February 3, 2009

• Wants

  In the end I think it’s the wanting that’s the problem. When we want things, will for things, wish for things to be, that’s where pain comes from. That’s where sorrow and sadness comes from. That’s where depression finds its roots. In the wanting.

  I don’t mean “Not Wanting. “Not Wanting” is actually JUST as bad. That is to say when you say “I don’t want X” really that’s a specification of a WANT. In fact it’s often a double want. 

  There’s the pure logically connection. “I don’t want X” really MEANS “I want X not to be the case or not to come about”. For example, “I don’t want to get married” generally means “I want to NOT get married”. And “I don’t want to grow old” means “I want it not to be the case that growing old will happen to me.”

  But there’s also a more subtle kind of want sometimes represented with a “Not Want”. That is the reverse psychology aspect. Often when we say “I don’t want X” it actually means that we DO want X, or at least a part of us partially wants X but we don’t want to want it and we don’t think we’ll ever be able to get it. “I don’t want to have children” for example could mean that you actually don’t want children or it could mean that you do but don’t think you’ll be able to, either due to not being able to find a suitable partner, or fearing that you won’t be able to handle the responsibility of having children. In a way, these kinds of Not WANTS are our instinctive way to hide our vulnerability resulting from our wants by denying the want verbally, explicitly, and perhaps emphatically.

  But you see that’s just it isn’t it? It’s the WANTING that’s the problem. Stupid pointless wants. Driving us to madness. Driving us to idiocy. Making us suffer.

  What a waste of energy and time!

  Life was easier back in the old days. Back then I didn’t want for much. Admittedly I wasn’t aware of much, but that’s just because I didn’t care. Most things that passed my vision were invisible to my eye. I didn’t see things and I didn’t see people. It was only my inner mind that matters. Back then I did not want. And though there was not so much that was all that great, there was also not so much that was all that BAD either. Everything just… was.

  What’s the opposite of wanting you see? Why, it’s ACCEPTING of course.  And when you accept the things that happen to you as just whatever happens happens, only then can you be at peace.

  • 1:13 pm
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