Desire
# Reference
- Source: Atlas/Maps/DLQ 10 MOC
- Keywords: Cards/permanent notes
- Relevant Notes:
- Module 1A
- Cards/Problem versus Mystery
- Cards/Absolute Certainty versus Wonder
- Cards/Order and Chaos
- Cards/Perfectionism: Desires help us create the story of our lives; perfectionism bars us from this, leaving us with no more story to tell.
- Module 1B
- Cards/The First Principle and Foundation
- Cards/Discernment: What helps us channel our desires into bringing about a good life.
- Cards/Consolation
- Cards/Desolation
- Cards/Disordered attachments: Desires that aren’t freeing/liberating
- Module 2
- Cards/Tangibles: Tangibles, at their core, reflect desires
- Cards/The Divided Life: what happens when we don’t channel our desires properly
- Cards/Brokenness: Our desires show how we are uniquely broken.
- Cards/The False Self: The False Self is a self mastered by desires (manifested as disordered attachments). But desire can also lead us to our True Self.
- Cards/Self-rejection: When we reject ourselves, making our desires value-adding is impossible.
- Module 1A
# Notes
- Desire is the ==energy that moves our lives.==
- Desire is inherent to all of us, as shown by Ronald Rolheiser: “…Everyone is ultimately talking about the same thing – an unquenchable fire, a restlessness, a longing, a disquiet, a hunger, a loneliness, a gnawing nostalgia, a wildness that cannot be tamed, a cogenital all embracing ache that lies at the center of human experience and is the ultimate force that drives everything else. This disease is universal.”
- Desire is the ==natural faculty of introspection.==
- Aim to be comfortable about reflecting on who you are and where you are.
- We are like cars. If you go on long rides, you need to check your engine, right? Similarily, we need to constantly check ourselves when we are pursuing anything long-term in life.
- Your incompletion (or your Cards/Brokenness) is manifested in your desires.
- Moving forward: we will need to know how to channel these desires properly so that they can bring about a good life.
- That’s what Cards/Discernment is for.
- What’s your relationship with your desires? ==Are you mastering them, or are they mastering you?==
- If you master them, you can convert your desire into something ==value-adding==.
- There is no such thing as a bad desire…at its core. It only becomes bad/tainted when it surfaces to the level of action (where it becomes destructive to you and others).
- So think about what lays underneath the desire. For instance, acts of murder can be rooted in a desire for justice.
- Desire is supposed to free you into becoming the person you want to be. It is liberating. When it’s not, it becomes an attachment (see Cards/Disordered attachments).
- They should lead you to something greater.
- There is no such thing as the absence of desire; there is only the ignorance of it.
- Contentment isn’t antithetical to desire…make sure to distinguish this from settling.
- Back to puzzles (a.k.a. Desire and its connection to Cards/Perfectionism)
- Do not be afraid of your imperfections; they point to the bigger story of your life.
- Instead, be weary of Cards/Perfectionism; that means there’s no more story left to tell.
- Never ever lose sight of the bigger picture.
- R.M. Rilke: “…Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without ntoicing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
- The real answering comes in the living.
- Don’t let your desires define you. Remember, there is more to a meal (a.k.a. your life) than your bread-&-butter (a.k.a. core desire). Enrich it with other desires as well.
- How can we find this core desire? Make sense of previous expereinces. Look at the things that have given you life.
- So early in your career, make learning ypur biggest priority. Don’t be a perfectionist; fight the urge to get things right immediately.
- The way of the deepest desire (or the Strategy of Liberation) can lead us to Cards/The True Self