Desire: I know you most of all the feelings. But what I comprehend is merely what I have grown used to when you course through me, and I must say I never looked anywise deep into you — you might say I know you little or none if you look at things that way. You are one of those phenomena we don’t question, merely part of the human experience — not so vital as breathing, not so easy to ignore as a yawn. I may ask, that when I desire for the better, is it the same desire that wanted what was base? Is it true what Buddha said, that desire is the cause of all suffering? I suppose modern psychology will tell me that everything has a rationale, but desire: we may know the reasons why we want what we want, but I still can’t make sense of it, sometimes: the reasons are themselves unreasonable. And sometimes circular.

No amount of talking about certain things will make me want to desire them, though I have been known to be persuaded on others. And desire sometimes comes out of nowhere. It usually denotes a kind of weakness, but I find that I disagree with the Buddha, and think not that all desire should be quelled. For in its forms, even God desires — though that must definitely be of a different quality altogether. People don’t usually think about desire, only the object at the end of it. I discover, when I reach to understand it, I am left with what is missing — and that, perhaps, is the most we can say about it. When we desire, it is merely that for whatever why, we are missing some piece of us, and that is it: desire means to complete us. And occasionally, that missing piece of us is something missing in someone else. Nice.