There is no power more elusive, no fickle mistress more capricious, yet none more stubborn than desire itself. It is the essence of movement, the source of action, the vitality of creation. From the first moment we breathe life into our lungs, we are in its grasp, held captive by an insatiable craving that time cannot fill or triumph over silence.
Desire is the baby's first impulse to cry for the warmth of its mother's breast and the last spark of desire in the eyes of the dying, who, even in their last breaths, reach out for something more than themselves. It is the source of all art, all war, all conquest, all destruction. The golden thread runs through the tapestry of human life and the frayed thread that causes it to unravel. It is our most terrible curse and our most precious blessing.
To want is to be human, alive, and swept up in the endless cycle of wanting and losing. And yet, if there is one certainty in this world, nothing, not even the most fervent wish, can last. Pursuing fulfillment is a game against time, and time is a ruthless opponent. Once obtained, the object of our desire decays in our hands, its brilliance dulled by the very act of possession. The wine, once poured, loses its heady aroma. The beloved, once acquired, is a norm and not a passion. The triumph, once gained, is gobbled up by the days passing.
And so we go onward and onward, from hunger to hunger, never really arriving, never really in repose. This is the paradox of our lives: we pursue that which we can never possess, and in seeking it, we gain a sense of ourselves. To cease from wanting is to stay, and to stay is to die. The ascetics who teach the world-denying renunciation of desire do not rise above human nature; they only flee its burden. The philosophers who demand the annihilation of desire demand an unattainable freedom that would reduce life to black-and-white, to a matter of sheer being, not colour, import, beat. A life without desire is no life.
Desire is why empires are constructed, cities are built, and poets inscribe words into eternity. It is the wind that sweeps men to war, the fire that kindles revolutions, the sickness that makes lovers mad. It is the urge that pushes explorers to the end of the map that compels artists to find the perfect line, the perfect word, the perfect note. It is the gas of myth and legend, the intangible force that controls the destiny of kings and beggars. And yet, though its power is immense, desire is an illusion, a mirage that vanishes on touch yet re-forms again in the distance.
We promise ourselves that real and lasting bliss is just beyond the next horizon. One more victory, one more love, one more triumph, and finally, we shall be complete. But happiness isn't a location; it's the fleeting glint of sunlight between the shadows. We chase our lives toward a mirage, and it is dust by the time we arrive. And so we turn to the following vision, promise, and quest.
Maybe there is some beauty in this, some tragic grandeur in the reality that we will never be content. If the desire is to lie just out of reach forever, then it is not possession but the seeking that makes us what we are. The pursuit, and not the prize, is the prize itself. To exist is to search, to hunger, to strive. And when all desire passes away, one will arise to replace it, and the waltz will be danced yet again.
Thus, we move, not to pleasure, for we know that that never comes about toward the sublime pain of the chase. We move because we must- because to exhaust is to yield, and to yield is something we cannot do.
Nothing lasts other than desire. And in that, there is suffering and transcendence.
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