The Dharma Bum

Diary of a Madman, Pt. II: A Discourse on Desire

by Jaysen Buterin

"There can be no peace of mind in love, since what one has obtained is never anything but a starting point for further desires."

- Marcel Proust

And as a great poet once waxed about desire, "Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were." In a world that seems hellbent on taking up the entire hand basket, what are we without our desires? Are we nothing more than the latest coming of the same old dominant male monkey cavalry, doomed to whittle away our existence until nothing remains but Keith Richards and fodder for future generations history books? Or will these opposable thumbs be good for something else besides hitching rides and taking up valuable real estate in your bum? Perhaps, dear readers, perhaps. But if we're going down, then by anything and everything that you hold sacred, go down in a blaze of glory because at least fueling the flames of passion and desire - even for the most fleeting of moments - is better than blowing out your candles before you ever make a wish.

Why such a brouhaha about desires? Because as much as we'd like to believe that humanity is the metaphysically autonomous master of its own destiny, this world does not owe us any favours, and if you don't stop to look around every once in a while it will pass you by, smoking your desires like a star lit up like a cigar. People lose track of their desires just as easily as they lose track of their minds, and yet stripping down to your pink bits and barking at the moon is still frowned upon while making Pavlov proud and slapping your hands together like a wind-up cymbal-crashing monkey while you listen to the fragmented and often mispronounced ramblings of a scared little boy threatening the new neighbourhood big bad with an atomic ass-kicking that he cannot seem to even pronounce correctly, is perfectly well within the comfort zone of so many. It's a fool who looks for logic in the four chambers of the human heart.

Cut off a slice of cross-cultural Americana, pop it in your mouth like a shot of salty goodness, and you're left with an aftertaste of desires abandoned for no other reason than it would've taken too much effort to turn off Joe Millionaire or Celebrity Meet My OBGYN, or whatever silly flotsam and jetsam is the latest eructation of the video that killed the radio star - and turn on to the one person, place, or thing that you want more than anything in this crazy little thing called love. Now whether I get a "hallelujah" or a "what the hell's wrong with ya?" I'll still be standing patiently over here, next to the forest, just thru the trees where the wild things grow, underneath the big neon sign that says "24-hour Electric Love Saloon..." with a red guitar on fire, serenading my desire.

Desire: n. yearning, longing; strong sexual attraction; wish. Desire: she's a candle burning in my room; yeah I'm like the needle, needle and spoon; over the counter with a shotgun; pretty soon everybody got one; and the fever when I'm beside her; desire. Because you see, no matter how low the rattle of your hum may be (where the bright lights and the big city meet), no matter what Stygian depths you skim along the surface of (like a smooth stone set free from the delicate hand of that adourable little French pixie) - the only thing worse than not having any desires at all, is having a desire that is tucked away on the back of the shelf, still in the original packaging, gathering dust because batteries were not included so what's the bloody point?

The world is longing for a healing, a healing that can begin with nothing more simple than the desire to do so, and yet that seems to be the one tantalising drink of water, the one elixir only a bite away, that will forever be just a kiss away from our lips. It will be our North, our South, our East, and our West - our working week and our Sunday rest, and while we may not get to it in this lifetime or the next, we will get to the top of the mountain...I have seen it, and it is good. But then again, my every desire is in the next room, waiting ever-so patiently for me to set aside my pen, to sedate my brain with a smoke stack Camel pack, slam one back with Kerouac - technicolour visions of a loveseat in the sky.

Desire is a Vivaldi composition away from the nefarious temptations of the white man's firewater; it is the reason we drop to one knee to propose an ebb and flow, hoping to Clapton that she says yes; it is the warm fuzzy that I get when it finally sinks in that this is the one moment that every moment in my life has led me to and it feels so bellysweet. Desire is the one thing that makes everything else worth fighting for, and no one can ever take that away from you. She's the dollars, she's my protection, she's my promise in the year of election; oh sister, I can't let you go, like a preacher stealing hearts at a traveling show. That's desire ladies and gentlemen, it makes you howl anyway, why fight it? Whether you got desire in my passion, or I spilled some passion on your desire, if you don't have that one special thing that you're not getting up for, then stop all the clocks and cut off the telephone because faith, fidelity, and the follies of being human have showed us that Maria Brooks was epiphanically right when she said...

To be continued next month.