"Desire is Everything"

My wife and I have recently remodeled and are in the process of redecorating our home. We impulsively bought a couple of very cool chairs from a consignment shop. We didn't know we wanted them until we saw them. In fact, even after they were in our living room, it took us both a couple days to love them. The rest of what we purchased, however, was ordered online, mostly from Amazon.

I've never been a "shopper." I don't take pleasure walking up and down aisles just to see what's on offer. My favorite store is our local Ace Hardware, where I'm met at the door by a friendly salesperson, who not only knows where everything is, but can actually help talk me through my project to make sure I'm getting exactly what I need. Whether it's a 17¢ eye screw or an expensive power tool, I'm in-and-out, and quite confident I won't be coming back until I need something else.

With online shopping, however, I've found myself browsing. Each time I click on something I need, the algorithms offer me suggestions for things I might want. One of those wants, for me, was a titanium cutting board. Unlike with the light switches, shelving, and other practical things I've recently ordered, I found myself dwelling on this sleek object during the space between when I clicked the "buy now" button and its arrival. I imagined myself slicing and dicing on it, holding it, and even cleaning it. In short, I spent 24 hours desiring this, literally, shiny new object that would enhance my day-to-day life. Of course, as every modern person has experienced, from the moment this desired object arrived in its crude cardboard box, wrapped in too much plastic, I felt disappointment. It's been a couple days now. I'm not sure I like it better than my old wooden cutting boards.

Anthropologist David Graeber tells us that for much of human history, that long span of time before capitalism came to dominate so much of our lives, "the idea that one could resolve the matter (desire) by 'embracing' the object of his or her fantasy was missing the point. The very idea was considered a symptom of a profound mental disorder, a species of 'melancholia.'"

This is what I've experienced in the aftermath of attaining my titanium cutting board. It's a far cry from a profound mental disorder, but there is definitely something melancholic about it. Each time I've used that damn, dissatisfying cutting board, I've caught myself wondering if I've just chosen the wrong brand or price point. Maybe I just need to try a different titanium cutting board . . . It's taken some effort to not click on the cascade of titanium cutting board ads that now clutter my feeds because even as I've acquired the object of my desire, the desire remains . . . and the algorithms seem to know it.

Graeber tells us that medieval psychological theory understood that we were meant to contemplate our desires, but not to strive to sate them because it's in the nature of our desires to be insatiable. In contrast to needs, there is always something more to want, something more the covet, something more to conquer. No matter what we buy, we always just miss the point of our longing, leaving us with a melancholy that can only be satisfied with a new longing. This is what our distant ancestors would have identified as "depression." Shopping malls have always made me feel instantly exhausted: maybe I'm just responding to being surrounded by all that depression.

The stereotype is of children having tantrums over not getting the toy they desire, but that isn't who they are. We make them that way; not you and me specifically, but our consumer culture that runs on this low grade melancholia in which we only live fully in the interim between longing (as distinct from needing) and consumption. 

I use that phrase intentionally -- "live fully" -- because to live fully means to be full of insatiable desires, wants, and dreams. Our lot in life is not to burn up our short existence vainly trying to snuff out our desires through consumption, but rather to contemplate them, to muse upon them, and to be inspired by them. When we succeed in keeping our young children at a distance from media as pediatricians recommend (an increasingly difficult thing in today's world), we see natural, non-depressed humans who are consumed, not by consumption, but by their own curiosity and wonder. 

The other day I was talking with a friend who is a decade older than me. She said, "I still like sex, but it's the desire I miss. The older I get, the more I realize that sex is nothing. If I had to choose, I'd take desire over sex any day. Desire is everything."

I've been writing this as the morning turns from full dark to a sunrise that is now revealing this newly re-decorated room that surrounds me. It's all still new enough that I'm content with everything I see, but especially those two cool chairs that I never desired, but now possess. I catch myself gazing at them several times a day, not sitting in them because they're more like works of art than furniture. I'm reminded of a small bit of tree root I found as a child that looked to me like a cute little bird. I still have that accidental bird and I still sometimes hold it in my hand, feeling the smooth part that is its breast and the pointy bit that is its slightly opened beak. Just outside my window, is our grapefruit tree, another thing I never desired, but now possess. I didn't really care for grapefruit juice, but now I crave it.

Those chairs, that bird-root, this grapefruit tree. I do desire them I suppose, but the desire has come complete with its own satisfaction. Or perhaps, more accurately, my desire for them has grown out of my possession of them. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer famously wrote, "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." He was writing in the early 1800's, long before this modern age of consumerism. Capitalism, mercantilism, and colonialism were on the rise, however, and I wonder if this man's most famous quote reveals an ignorance of what was to come. Perhaps it's still true that we can't choose what we desire, but I think it's pretty clear that we can, unless we are on guard, have desires inflicted upon us, which is what that titanium cutting board was all about. I suppose it's possible that this disappointing object will eventually come to hold a place like the one occupied by those chairs, that bird-root, and this grapefruit tree, but it seems unlikely because my desire grew in the shallow soil of marketing and has already sunk under the nagging melancholia. 

It's now been decades since my family agreed to no longer purchase holiday gifts for one another. We continued to buy toys and books for the kids, but our adult gifts are handmade from materials that, by agreement, cost less than $10. There is no shopping involved. An unanticipated thing has happened with the children. One-by-one, they've all opted out of the store bought gifts, desiring instead to join us adults.

In the end, that is what consumerism robs us of. It seeks to keep us living in the interim between the "buy now" button and opening the box, treating our desires like some sort of low grade fever that is never to be cured, but rather kept under control one purchase at a time. As my friend said, desire is everything. This is what our toddlers know that we've forgotten.

A flock of geese just flew by my window, low and loud. Right now my desire right is to fly. 

******

I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!