On Desire, Why We Want What We Want

ON DESIRE, WHY WE WANT WHAT WE WANT

A BOOK

Irvine, B William. 2006. On Desire Why We Want What We Want. Oxford University Press: New York.

The Ebb and Flow of Desire

 “When we are lovesick, we lose a significant amount of control over our lives…Freud called lovesickness ‘the psychosis of normal people’” (Irvine 2006, pg 12).

Our desires choose us and not just the loving kind but the commercial kind as well.

 Other People

 Irvine helps us understand how the strongest purpose in our lives derives from caring for someone “To be alone is one of the greatest evils for man” (Irvine, pg 31). He says that even if we were totally fulfilled by our rituals we would still seek out people, illustrating this using The Last Man theory where a man wakes up to find himself all alone in the world, realising that the things he ‘wanted’ he no longer does without the presence of people. What he longs for is company, “If we compare the lifestyle of the last person with our own we will quickly recognize the impact the presence of other people has on our lives” (Irvine 2006, pg 42).The movie I Am Legend is a perfect example of this where one man continues to live utterly alone in the hope that someday he will find more people.

 The Wellsprings of Desire

Irvine explains that we do what we do to feel good and to avoid feeling bad, where the intellect is the thing in charge of our ‘needs’ and our emotions are the things that drive our ‘wants’. We need things to stay alive; we want things to make us happy, but sometimes it is quite difficult to listen to the intellect. Irvine compares our emotions to that of a whining five year old child – if we always give in to them then we lose our power over them (like a parent with a five year old child) but by listening to the intellect we can maintain power.

Today we have more wants than we have needs and most of these are un-fulfilled. Marketing knows that the way to penetrate human happiness is to make us want things.

Imagine you lived only by needing things, you’d be like a puppy or a tree, content and totally in the present however you’d also be pretty robotic and dull without desire. We’d also maybe all be the same. Our desires give us personality.

The Psychology of Desire

Sometimes we miswant because we fantasise about what will make us happy, so Irvine suggests tying to only want things we will like having when we get them. He says that miswanting and adaptation lie at the heart of all human instability like a satisfaction treadmill: want, get, and want something else. He also says that “The mind commands the body. The mind commands itself” (Irvine 2006, pg 115).

Religious Advice

Buddha, the Enlightened One, believed that the best way to end the evil and sorrow of the world was to overcome desire. He advised overcoming desire through recognising a series of ‘Noble Truths’:

1/ The First Noble Truth is that life is full of suffering (our lives are not satisfactory).

2/ The Second Noble Truth is that this suffering is caused by desire and ignorance.

3/ The Third Noble Truth is that by overcoming desire and gaining wisdom we can overcome suffering”.

4/ The Fourth Noble Truth tells us that the best way to deal with desire is to follow the Noble Eightfold Path.

Buddha rejected hedonism and asceticism and advises us to follow the ‘middle path’ i.e. between the two extremes of self indulgence and self mortification.

How can we overcome desire? Not, says Bondhi, by repressing our desires but by “changing our perspective on them so that they no longer bind us. By not stealing, causing pain, lying etc mind free of unwholesome thoughts e.g. sensual desire, ill will, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness and worry, and doubt. (Irvine, 2006)

Zen practice is supposed to allow us to overcome desire without desiring that we overcome it. The enlightened person is spared much of the anxiety of decision making, able to make decisions very easily.

In Christianity the goal is not to extinguish desire but to overcome sinful desire by means of prayer with the incentive of going to heaven.

The Islamic take on desire is similar to Christianity: Muslims pray to overcome forbidden desires.

Philosophical Advice

Hellenist Philosophers believe the primary reason for doing philosophy is so we can have better lives.

The Stoics argue that the key to a good life is to master desire “The Key insight of Epictetus is that it makes no sense to fret about the things that aren’t up to us” (Irvine 2006, pg 241).

What I love about the Stoics is their attitude to power: they say “Do not seek to have events happen to you as you want them to he declares but instead want them to happen as they do happen” (Irvine 2006). Irvine describes having power as something achievable if we listen to our intellect and don’t give into our desires.

The Sceptics valued tranquillity and believed that the key to happiness was to refuse to form beliefs about the world around us: “The Physical pain might be identical to that inflicted by the doctor, but the psychic pain will be extreme (this claim echoes the Stoic claim that what hurts us is not so much the world around us as the thoughts inside our heads)” (Irvine 2006, 252).

The Eccentrics are people who live without feeling like they need to fit in with society. “Aristotle said that a man who feels no need to live in society must either be a beast or a god” (Irvine, 2006). Some remove themselves from society as is seen in the movie Into the Wild a real story about a man who ran away from societal pressures to be self sufficient and reliant in the ‘wild’.

The eccentrics don’t feel compelled to prosper financially, pray, meditate - instead they suggest watching other people and learning from what these people call ‘success’ and seeing how miserable it makes them. Most eccentrics are not that way by choice.

Eccentrics are like children because they take obvious and intense delight in things the rest of us find commonplace or boring. “Many elderly realise this and take to eccentricity like a duck to water. At long last they can be themselves, a right they feel they have earned” (Irvine 2006, pg 275).

The Design for Living

THE DESIGN FOR LIVING

“To philosophize is to learn how to die, simply because it is to learn how to live and because death – the idea of death, the inevitability of death – is part of living.”

I used to believe there was a 'Design for Living'. I derived this notion from my immense intake of stories. I noticed that so many are the same, so many characters want and need the same things. My 'Design' said we needed communication and rituals. My take on this has since developed. Instead of a 'Design' I believe it is much simpler. To understand must think about what it actually means to be human. So many have philosophized about man's purpose on earth. My personal opinion is that there is none, we procreate and we keep on living changing the world as we go “Living in the present is not a dream, nor an ideal, nor a utopia: it is the simple and extremely difficult truth of being".  Now reduce your life to this simple concept, imagine yourself as an early ancestor in a cave if you must - just as they were we still are, humans need to and want to survive. We survive so we can procreate and thus change. Is change our purpose? It is the difference between us and other mammals and animals on the Earth. And what is their purpose? To serve ours? Where then will all this change lead us?

"Then there's the other movement... farmers going out to milk their cows... soldiers reporting for duty. Those who believe that life will go on somehow... or just don't know what else to do. People prepare for the worst... but hope for the best. They concentrate on the things that are important to them. All the things beyond fat and flour" Perfect Sense 2011

Now this is where my 'design' comes in. To survive we need food, water, shelter. These are the things that will physically keep us alive. But I strongly believe we also need things to keep us mentally alive - communication.

'To be alone is one of the greatest evils of man'. Alone, a man is nothing. Even the changes he may make to the world around him means nothing if it cannot be witnessed or consumed by others. The need for other's approval is just one of the ways in which we need communication. Irvine says that we all desire to be a ‘somebody’ and for people to acknowledge our existence, to admire us if not love us. Our desires are not random, they are manipulated or predetermined by evolutionary psychology to pro-create which means that whether we like it or not we are driven by an urge to find compatibility and connection in other people which strengthens Lacan’s reading of our constant pursuit for the ‘Thing’ in relationships.

Communicating with others is a way for us to reach out into the abyss of the world and clutch to what we can find. When we find someone we particularly like communicating with we cling on tight. The sense of self is mostly lost as a child as we grow to recognise that we are not the centre of the universe, that our minds are ours alone and no one will ever penetrate them fully or understand them fully:

"In search of something we feel ourselves to be  lacking (a sense of self loss), but it will never exist and never did" 

(Cramer)

Love is the answer. Love in people but love in other things too including religion, art, politics, work or an idea. But whatever you love, it will lead back to purpose, your purpose.

Pop Culture Reference:

Walt, the protagonist in the TV series Breaking Bad, needs to take control in his life when he is told he will die of cancer and so he decides to take control of the money he will leave to his family. He discovers a talent in cooking crystal meth as he gets involved with a young dealer. The two begin to get deeply involved in the Drug Trade where Walt gradually becomes a very respected figure. This makes him feel respected, good and powerful. However when his wife finds out, he stops for her for a short time before making a choice to go back. This time however it isn't just a way of coping with Cancer, it is everything. His life spirals out of control and he loses his family, his friends and his life by the end.

Walt experiences a trauma, makes a realisation, creates for himself a coping mechanism, is confronted, makes a choice and is resolved.

This linear projectile is something seen often in stories. And is key to my 'Design' where almost always the resolve is that people are important. The projectile teaches the protagonist the Design. Or speaks about it, defies it, never knows it.

“To live is to struggle, resist, survive, and no one can do so indefinitely. In the end we must die and it is the only thing we can be certain of. We would like there to be life after death, because that alone would allow us to definitively answer the question. But curiosity is no more an argument than hope.” (The Little Book of Philosophy). Curiosity is the hope that we will find ultimate communication and completeness.

 “There is the Platonic interpretation death, that is to say the separation of the soul from the body, is the purpose of life...through suicide? No, on the contrary, through life that is, more pure, more free since it is freed sooner from this prison – from this tomb, as Plato says in the Gorgas – which is the body.” The cacoon and the butterfly – Lacan.

“I’d rather have your opinion on paintings or books or plays than anyone else’s I know. But you’re liable to get side tracked if you’re not careful. Life is for living first and foremost. Even for artists, life is for living. Remember that.” (Coward, 1994) 

Ritual, Anorexia and Sarah Kane

Ritual, Faith, Anorexia and Sarah Kane

Ritual can help give you purpose, distract you from the realities of life and act as a coping mechanism to neutralize anxiety.

“A: A horror so deep only ritual can contain it.

M: Express it.

B: Explain it.

A: Maintain it.

B: Besosbrujos que me matan”

(Sarah Kane ‘Crave’)

Rituals are little things we do day to day which give us purpose. They give us purpose because we have faith that they do. They are essential in the life of a happy human being and essential in the shaping of a person and their contributions to the world. 

 “That does it, then. I’m not going to believe in any damned 

revolution. Love is all I’m going to believe in” (Kazuo Ishiguro 

p237). 

Hope, belief, faith and curiosity are important in order to help us 

believe that what we do day to day serves a purpose. They keep us 

searching and striving which in turn keeps us living and breathing. 

Imagine someone told you that nothing you believed in or hoped for 

was true or ever going to happen. Imagine a life without faith. What would you do?

KATIE  I’m so glad we didn’t find one another when I was 26

BEN Why do you say that?

KATIE I was so young and you were so old. It happened when

 it was supposed to.

·  Benjamin Button

"No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don’t 

believe in fairies, and every time a child says, ‘I don’t believe I

n fairies,’ there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead" (Peter

 Pan by J.M. Barrie 1967 p 45).

 “The function of ritual, as I understand it, is to give form to human life, not in the way of mere surface arrangement, but in depth.” (Cambell). 

“The day depicts the night

 Want to be empty, as human as possible, not filled with food.

As pure and human as possible.

 Anything else taints my insides

and I need to be perfect not for you,

 but for myself. Maybe you. Maybe Dad”

They give access to emotional states that are not language based therefore are not part of the symbolic order, something which has it's roots deep in constrictions and limitations: "...she clasped her hands in prayer before she learned to speak and relied on there and other gestures to communicate her deepest feelings throughout her life...” - ritual before language. 

We need them in our life to give ourselves a little structure and control in a world simply to big and too chaotic. A liminal space is one that is restricted only to you, a place where you can be yourself and natural without the thoughts of anything else outside of it. And this is where rituals take place: “Liminal spaces provide an abnormal experience of a world without social structure...an experience of what is potential but unrealised in normal life, a brief but intoxicating wiff of utopia or heaven”. Rituals can soothe, make us feel as if we belong, have purpose and reason to exist “In short, the terrible insecurity of daily life created an un-quenchable demand for ritual, for rituals that assisted fertility succored the afflicted, eased grief”.

Rituals have greater connotations with religious ceremonies and this is perhaps because it is where they are strongest - the church is huge and powerful and was a fundamental aspect in many peoples lives back in time. The liminal space was a church and the ritual was the ceremonies and worship and this gave and gives people comfort and reason to life good lives: “Rituals brought the cosmic order into daily life by giving persons access to divine power” These days less and less people are strongly religious or rely on it like we have done in the past. You can have ritual in supporting a sports team, raising your children, creating art, helping people, your job, getting healthier, murder (see Dexter), education...anything that gives you a reason to get up in the morning and anything that is not to do with the people you love - rituals are about the individual, love is as important as ritual but is completely separate. Sometimes ritual can be a harmful or medical for example eating disorders, alcoholism, drug abuse, criminality and murder.

“freaky eating as a coping mechanism to mask underlying mental health problems, such as depression or anxiety”.

“...give a sense of control, order, and meaning"

“Either way, food becomes the ritual that fills up a person inside.”

“Eating disorders as a source of meaning, religion, and ritual”.

Rituals tend to be psychological and unfortunately can be a result of something traumatic and in turn create trauma for other people. I have experience in eating disorders and I can tell you that it does indeed become a source of meaning, but more than anything else it gives you control and certainty and this gives you a reason to wake up in the morning. The day ahead is all about sticking to a set of rules with an imagined reward at the end "...people can judge themselves as better or worse depending on their food choices...can be reassuring to someone who craves certainty...becomes a preverse sort of religion...heaven of certainty while a higher weight plunges one into hell  of terror. It can afford a level of drama and intensity unmatched by anything else in the person’s life” (Newmark). 

Ritual is disconnected from the real world around us and having it in our lives allows us to live with a little fantasy and hope “Ritual attempting to explain human behavior in animated terms, blurring lines between ‘art’ and‘life’” (Pink).

Childhood Belief

When we are young we believe everything because we have no reason not to. We did not need purpose because we were living out the “Design” without being aware of it. We don’t have rituals when we are children e.g. checking under the bed for monsters because we truly believe that there are monsters. But eventually we stop believing and we learn the truth. As adults faced with reality, we develop rituals to help us get through the day so that we have something to believe in again. The only difference is that deep down, you know it is not true (e.g your prayer will not save a loved ones life). We deal with hardships by trying to control them and most of the time this is also what a ritual is. Ritual can make us feel content, ignorant, organised, prepared, reassured of existence and when we don’t do it it can make us feel out of control.

I wanted to create something about the transition of childhood ritual into adult ritual.

When I was younger I used to say a prayer every night. This became my ritual of hope but this religion was replaced by another religion; one I created: “a perverse sort of religion”. I could control this religion and it had certainty which gave me meaning and purpose in life: “food becomes the ritual that fills the person up”.

I played a French song in the background of my piece, specifically because you could not understand the lyrics. On top of this, a young girl spoke the lines of my prayer over and over again off stage.

On stage was a table and in the middle of the table was a see through box which had cling film on one end and inside it was a teddy bear. On one side of the box there was a teaspoon, a cup, scales, and a pint of water. On the other side was jam (crafted ‘sugar free’ label on the front), milk (crafted fat free label on the front), a jug of water, and a box of porridge oats.

Apron, Porridge, Milk, Measuring Jug, Jam, Bowl, Teddy Bear, Spoon, Cup, Water, Scales

No Fat, Wee bit of Fat, Half Fat

The actress enters downstage stage after a short while and approaches the table. She has a bowl in her hand. She turns the box around and takes the teddy out and puts it in her back pocket. She then replaces it with the bowl and turns the box back around so that the cling filmed front is facing the audience. The prayer begins to be recited a little differently. First she drinks the entire pint of water and proceeds to make the porridge never moving from directly in front of the hollow box (we can see through it to her stomach). She measures the oats and then empties them into the bowl; then pours water into a cup and pours this into the bowl; then pours milk into the cup and pours this into the bowl; and then measures a teaspoon of jam and puts this in also. She then retrieves the lid for the box and places it on the upright box in front of her turning it around with the bowl still inside. We can no longer see through it to her stomach and only the box is her torso. The praying stops at the same time as the music.

The Prayer

Prayer One: “Dear God.Thank you for everything and everyone in the whole wide world. Please blesseveryone and everything. Amen.”

Prayer Two: “Dear God.Thank you for everyone and everything in the whole wide world, and me. Thank you for everyone and everything, and me. Amen.”

“In time they could not even fly after their hats. Want of practice

, they called it; but what it really was that they no longer believed” 

(Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie 1967 p 208).

Sarah Kane's Play

“I want to feel physically like I feel - emotionally starved.”(Kane).

“I tried to explain that I don’t want to sleep with someone who wont appreciate how hard it was for me the following morning, but he’d passed out by the time I finished my sentence” (Kane).

“My entire life is waiting to see the person with whom I am currently obsessed starving the weeks away until our next fifteen minute appointment” (Kane).

“I write the truth and it kills me” (Kane).

“Don’t fill my stomach, fill my heart” (Kane).

“No one survives life” (Kane).

“I'm not ill. I just know that life is not worth living” (Kane).

“Lost.”

“I do not trust”

“I love you”

“Need change”

“You've fallen in love with someone that does not exist”

“I knew this”

“Why cant I learn?”

(Kane)