The chances are, if you're reading this, that you, like me, are one of the most fortunate people who ever lived. In material terms, you're better off than almost anyone who lived more than a century ago: not quite so much precious metal or land, perhaps, but better quality food in excessive quantities; a more comfortable bed; enough drinking water to swim in; more clean clothes than you know what to do with; books, music and other entertainments to occupy you for weeks, months or years; the whole internet to browse; most of the world reachable within 24 hours and almost instantaneous communication with almost everyone you know; good health or support for your infirmities; educated and a skilled user of the most powerful communication tool known to man, the English language...
But this isn't an exercise in counting your blessings. The question is: where does your discontent come from? I'm tempted to suppose that it is ultimately true that we are never satisfied. But why? Because we have an in-built appetite for improving our situation. When we evolved, there was no advantage to limiting this appetite; only recently (in evolutionary terms) has it started to kill us.
Of course, we can transcend this instinct: decide to seek more balance in our lives, a different kind of fulfilment (ponder that word). But there's a problem: the appetite doesn't go away. Whatever you do, this appetite will not go away. And if you master it or ignore it, it is liable to find an expression, possibly a neurotic or psychotic one!
That's not a very upbeat point at which to conclude. And a more positive perspective on this appetite is to give it its traditional name: hope. Hope is the instinctual belief that one's situation can improve, where "improve" means that the distance between the actual and desired situation is reduced. A change in perspective is required as this gap gets smaller. We need to focus less on the gap and more on the proximity. That is, we need to avoid accidentally taking two steps back to move one step forward. And we need to recall the greatest truth: the desire too can change, though it cannot simply be denied.
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Interesting article. The problem for me is that I am not always certain that the 'desire' doesn't match the outcome or if it does (probably a better way of saying it), it doesn't look like what I thought it would when I get it. Then again these are just my ever changing expectations!
A very good read.
Also... I love the idea of proximity!
Thanks, Luke!
At the risk of labouring the point, the desires themselves (plural) are multifarious and not a little noumenal. The desire (singular, perhaps "ambition" would be a more appropriate word - check out the etymology) is a synthesis over misperceived desires, which is validated, not independently, but by means of the same imperfect faculties. That is, the raw desires (1) are perceived (2) imperfectly, hypothetically satisfied (3) by a good story, whose goodness is validated by reference to anticipated reactions (4) perceived imperfectly (2). No matter how good the story (or ambition), it always suffers, in principle, from the impossibility of objective evaluation.
Now, suppose a reality that is fully congruent with the ambition. This reality is perceived rather holistically and, as ever, imperfectly at level 1. But at this level, there is no comparison with the ambition, there is only raw (dis)satisfaction, (mis)perceived at level 2. A new story is generated at level 3, and this may well be congruent with the ambition (which means you think you've got what you thought you wanted). But at the same time, you know (1) that you are not satisfied and begin to see (2) why...
Hello again,
In light of what you are saying, especially about perception and the misperception of desire, is all "ambition" the co-creative effort of the 'misperceived' story and reality? I am wondering if all ambition is a story. Some people I have spoken with have ambitions that seem to define them. Is there in "reality" an ambition for me to define that is a suitable purpose for me? That is, is their an external recognition of my purpose (if there is one at all) that I don't perceive because I am flirting with a partially accepted co-created story that I have misperceived!
In other words, is reality the place to find our desires?
Ambition stems from desire but where does the desire stem from... story only, DNA, parents, the world, space, God, the clouds? If we consider the desire in the plural sense as you have and the possible interconnections of desire starting points... there are a lot of possibilities!
Thanks Alan!
Thanks again, Luke!
To be honest, I think your questions are beyond my capacity to answer, except pehaps in the very long term. I have presented a crude model of how part of the system works, focusing on those aspects that seem to me to make sense. Fundamental to this model is the idea that all consciousness (whatever that may be) is "story". The "story" may happen to be true, of course. In this sense, then, I am happy to assert that all ambition is "story", by definition, in my view.
An ambition story may, of course, have many versions. I'd actually like to suggest a distinction here between drafts and versions, corresponding to the degree of purposefulness. In the draft stage, stories are revised "on the fly" by the "storyteller", based on feedback in the form of imagined reactions. In the versioning stage, the conscious "I" reviews the draft and makes changes based, for example, on beliefs about viability and logical coherence. It is probably too easy to get it wrong at this stage. From a pragmatic standpoint, the "reviewer" should simply identify the problem and refer back to the "author".
Anyway, in this polarised view of what is really a continuum, we see how the ambition story itself can become flawed. "Premature closure" occurs when there is inadequate iteration at the draft stage. Even without this, the "final draft" is only as good as the feedback allows, and imagined reactions to prospective realities are generally deficient. "Botched editing" occurs when a flaw detected by the "reviewer" is "corrected" without an holistic re-evaluation of the change. Similarly (but subsequently) "decay" occurs when circumstances and beliefs change without an adequate revision of the ambition version.
So, when you talk about people "defined by" their ambition, I imagine that these are people who (rightly or wrongly) believe that their ambition satisfies their desires. If you want to believe in some external reality of purpose, then it would seem plausible that embracing a faulty ambition might lead to "hints" from reality that a revision of the ambition is in order. In any event, repeatedly testing a serious ambition story by adding information about some of the specifics and re-evaluating in the light of changing circumstances ("prototyping", if you like), is likely to lead to a more "realistic" ambition with a reduced risk of disappointment if and when the ambition is realised.
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