snugglekitty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
snugglekitty) wrote2007-02-05 10:59 am
snugglekitty) wrote2007-02-05 10:59 am
a candle burnin' in my room
Tell me about your relationship with desire.
What changes has desire made in your life? What do you do when you realize you want something? Do you see your desires as trustworthy and positive, or suspect and dangerous?
What changes has desire made in your life? What do you do when you realize you want something? Do you see your desires as trustworthy and positive, or suspect and dangerous?
no subject
I was raised Catholic, so I'm not "supposed to" have desires, and I think that's affected me pretty negatively. Kind of got blindsided when I first started dating--I really liked my first boyfriend, but met another guy I was very attracted to and just didn't know how to handle it. I was 14 and screwed up relationships with both of them, and sometimes I wonder if that's set the tone for all my later relationships. I've cheated on several boyfriends, and a major reason Jorn and I made it as long as we did is because he's so easygoing.
Mostly I don't trust myself when I'm very attracted to someone. The strongest attractions I've felt have always turned out to be disastrous. The guys I am less attracted to are generally better for me. I was not particularly attracted to Jorn at first.
My biggest problem now is having desires and not having any outlet for it.
no subject
I intentionally left it open. I'm talking about desire as a force in someone's life, which can manifest in a lot of different ways for different people, although food, sex, and belief probably top the list for a lot of people.
Mostly I don't trust myself when I'm very attracted to someone. The strongest attractions I've felt have always turned out to be disastrous. The guys I am less attracted to are generally better for me. I was not particularly attracted to Jorn at first.
Mmmmm. Yeah.
An old therapist of mine said that when you have a "love at first sight" feeling about someone, sometimes it means that you have a psychic connection, but most of the time, they are resonating with your old baggage. Over the years, that has seemed more and more true. Simmering seems to bring me better relationships than a fast boil.
ps
no subject
The "end of analysis" comes, in Lacanian terms, when one can identify one's desire, and peacefully say "I am that" and be fully responsible to that desire, never ceding it, no matter the consequence to self. Antigone, for that reason, is his ultimate literary heroine. I like to think that we don't always have to die for it.
I agree with Lacan that it is in desire that we find our being, our self, our definition, and our raison d'etre. Which is a cheesy cop-out because it shouldn't be that we find both our "being" and our "reason for being" in the same thing, I feel sure. But...that's as far as I've gotten.
no subject
Your take is fascinating, and definitely not one I would have come up with on my own. Thank you for sharing.
no subject
I generally see my desires as positive, and I'd say trustworthy as well. But my reaction, what I do when I realize I want something, has changed significantly in the past few years. Burning Man, as an intensified, compressed version of life (with its myriad events and opportunities, and sense of limitless possibilities), has taught me hard lessons about expectations.
Expectations are self-created desires mixed with wishes for fulfillment. And they're total disasters so much of the time, because they become too fixed, too specific.
How much better things work out when I refrain from fixating on a specific desire, and instead think of it as something that could/might happen but which has its best chance if I can look at it as part of a larger set of possibilities. Possibilities that can be nurtured and given attention. I think of them as laying down cobbles, creating a path in the direction of a desire. Even if I never reach the destination, I'm making something useful and adapting it to the landscape along the way, and may encounter serendipity while I'm at it. Which sometimes leads to a new desire!
Sorry if that doesn't make sense the way I said it...the language part of my brain is mush lately...I feel shockingly inarticulate.
no subject
Bringing up expectations here strikes me as interesting. I have had recent bad experiences with the whole expectation thing, myself. Relaxing and seeing what happens seems to work out better. A lot of the time, when I don't get what I want, it's a nudge from the universe that I'm trying to go the wrong way. Your metaphor of cobbles is a good one.
Desire
Although I'm a passionate person, I've made such messes in my relationships with others that most of my desires have been satisfied through voyeurism for the past several years. I've always been a voyeur, but now I guess I'm acknowledging it more. Over 600 movies in 3 years? (Netflix!) Going to parties and not playing, just watching, and being bored usually -- is that jaded? I don't see anyone I want to play with. My crushes have been straight girls. My last affair (with a married woman in Canada) was disastrous - all the elements were actually there for something wonderful, but the wrong person... Well, my spiritual teacher says she was the RIGHT person to teach me lessons I learned, but that's another story!
When I actually feel desire for another person, in real life, it is often just about intimacy or kissing or holding hands. I rarely have fired up sexual desire - it takes a bit to get my burner going. But once it's lit, oh my...
Vashti
Re: Desire
Re: Desire