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reenkai wish i could figure out how desire works. i mean, it seems obvious, but it's not.
can you want something even if it goes against every other instinct you possess? can you want something and yet be unable to ever go after it? can you constantly only go after things you don't really want, and torture yourself with craving the one thing you think you -truly- want, and yet you're afraid that if you ever pursued it, you'd realize that it's cheap like everything else?
or does this all depend on who you are, defining how your desire works? is everything possible, or are certain things only possible for certain sorts of people? are there people who'd realize that they'd wanted something for the longest time, and think about it, consider, and then do nothing about it, repressing the memory into the deepest corner of their conscious mind?
"Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained."
every time i came across that quote from blake's poem, i used to smile, because it expressed my own beliefs so succinctly. and yet-- i see people denying themselves all the time, and is it because they're all weak? i -want- desire to be so impossibly powerful that no one could resist its force. i think this the sort of thing where one wants to believe love is stronger than fear, but first one has to really believe that kind of love exists in the first place.
you could see love everywhere-- it could be in a glance, in the turn of a shoulder, in a beat between words. desire could be anger and need could be jealousy and fear could be aggression. when you're growing up, it's especially volatile, and emotions kind of swing and tumble from extreme to extreme without pausing-- and yet, even now, it's hard to really believe it.
i want to write about the subliminal nature of desire-- all subtext and inferences and double meanings. i want to always have that knowledge that this is something else, safe because it never quite surfaces fully enough to be contradicted. i'm frustrated with the way people tend to look for the most obvious solution, the most blatant result from the loudest of sensory cues. "what he said must be what he meant."
i meant to write something about why i'm befuddled by people's disappointment in a pairing like ron/hermione because nothing blatant occurred. what is it that they were expecting? an announcement? kissing in the halls? why is it that the simplest answer has to be true all the time?
we all know there are signs, but sometimes i think i don't know what they are at all.
can you want something even if it goes against every other instinct you possess? can you want something and yet be unable to ever go after it? can you constantly only go after things you don't really want, and torture yourself with craving the one thing you think you -truly- want, and yet you're afraid that if you ever pursued it, you'd realize that it's cheap like everything else?
or does this all depend on who you are, defining how your desire works? is everything possible, or are certain things only possible for certain sorts of people? are there people who'd realize that they'd wanted something for the longest time, and think about it, consider, and then do nothing about it, repressing the memory into the deepest corner of their conscious mind?
"Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained."
every time i came across that quote from blake's poem, i used to smile, because it expressed my own beliefs so succinctly. and yet-- i see people denying themselves all the time, and is it because they're all weak? i -want- desire to be so impossibly powerful that no one could resist its force. i think this the sort of thing where one wants to believe love is stronger than fear, but first one has to really believe that kind of love exists in the first place.
you could see love everywhere-- it could be in a glance, in the turn of a shoulder, in a beat between words. desire could be anger and need could be jealousy and fear could be aggression. when you're growing up, it's especially volatile, and emotions kind of swing and tumble from extreme to extreme without pausing-- and yet, even now, it's hard to really believe it.
i want to write about the subliminal nature of desire-- all subtext and inferences and double meanings. i want to always have that knowledge that this is something else, safe because it never quite surfaces fully enough to be contradicted. i'm frustrated with the way people tend to look for the most obvious solution, the most blatant result from the loudest of sensory cues. "what he said must be what he meant."
i meant to write something about why i'm befuddled by people's disappointment in a pairing like ron/hermione because nothing blatant occurred. what is it that they were expecting? an announcement? kissing in the halls? why is it that the simplest answer has to be true all the time?
we all know there are signs, but sometimes i think i don't know what they are at all.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-01 11:22 pm (UTC)Now I'm confused. You seem to be talking about something less prosaic than lust, but you say you aren't talking about love either. What is desire if it's neither of these?
no subject
Date: 2003-07-01 11:54 pm (UTC)often enough, the desire is amorphous and even for some state of being that one cannot attain. the desire can be almost spiritual, intense and visceral-- and yet not really involve a simple need for copulation. the human mind is a weird thing, anyway.
i think gambling, for instance, can be a form of desire. even writing can be a form of desire-- that's why the obsessive compulsive disorder analogy seemed to really fit.
lust is just a body thing, pheromones and not much else, basically, whereas desire is a mind thing and can be felt without any pheromones at all, though it's not, usually. that's sort of the sorts of any sexual feelings towards fictional characters, i think-- since desire, more than lust, has its birth in the imagination. whereas, you know, lust has its birth in the groin area >:D