In check

These thoughts are the luxury of a comfortable old salary man contemplating retirement. I wish for the whole world, but particularly for those caught up in the thought that they must do just the task that seems to be set for them lest they not eat or not have progeny or....the list goes on, ...I wish that you could each have and chew on such doubts about your to-do list.


A badly organized list of what to do is not much help. Even if organized well according to the logic of external priorities, it is no better than having a good accountant who can always tell you exactly how far in over your head you are in debt.

It has not often been there for me but I'd guess that what must exist for success, what must come first, is the more emotional and very short list of why to do things. I rail against the pursuit of "why" in religious contexts but in the utterly human predicament of how to discharge one's life in a responsible and satisfactory way, "why" must be felt. Only an idiot geek like me would have to reason his way to this conclusion. I figure almost everyone else is already at this point of feeling confident of why they do what they do. Feelings are something most of us have. Education or reflection are not needed to acquire them, only to keep them in check or to develop more altruistic ones than nature gave us.

That way in which feeling trumps logic may be how "love makes the world go 'round".

If we can define desire as an abiding sense of motivation, not necessarily within the reach of explanation, directing us toward the attainment or maintenance of some possession, relationship or situation, then we should distinguish it from a wish by saying a wish can arise from no prompting at all or random circumstance and wither or grow into a desire. Which course, only fool would predict: the answer will be found in trial and effort and time. We do not know until we have had to provide time and carve resources from other commitments that absorb our personal stock of goods and powers, whether and abiding urge will form or any attachment arise.

It is only when you drop all else that you know you have picked up your heart's desire.