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Desire All

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I’ve been fantasising again about running away and living a life of adventure. I should probably be clearer there, I daily fantasise about running away and living a life of adventure. It’s a tricky one coming from a life of seemingly constant travel to one in which I’m now in one place for three months shy of a year. It’s not that I’ve never stayed this long in one place. On two separate occasions I went a year, but they were in slightly more exotic places, Ibiza and Athens. There are times I wonder why I left either of them but I know why. It’ll probably also be why I leave here too. The problem though is that when I’m constantly on the move I start to find myself craving some stability and a home. It’s like I want the opposite extreme of whichever extreme I’m currently living. I share this not because I like to share, although I clearly do, but because I know I’m not alone in this kind of thing. We do this, we all do this. Maybe not to such extremes or perhaps a different type of extreme, but we all desire what we don’t have.

The question then is what hole are we trying to fill when we decide to fulfil our desires. I say this not just in the sense of running off and finding a boat to an exotic land, but I, we, buy things too. We desire and consume stuff, just lots of random stuff, and this must be for a reason other than because either we need it or we’re zombies who’ve been bitten by capitalism’s contagion. Sorry about the alliteration, I’m fallible. The point is though that there must be something we’re searching for other than the obvious; the adventure or the new t-shirt. Have they found a way of hacking into our inner selves and discovering that we have empty spaces which need filling. Or has life and the world we live in created these holes that we’re constantly trying to find answers for.

Desire is not a new thing. People in huts a thousand years ago desired something more so they sailed the seas and invaded countries. There may have been necessity and survival in a way very different to our own but there was still desire too. People have always craved jewels, there were wars fought over nutmeg, people killed for love. There is something natural about desire then, it’s about improving our own circumstances and making our lives better. It’s that drive that makes things better through ideas and inventions. Yet we are told by Eastern Philosophy to be objective and tame the desires within.

Ultimately these desires lead to suffering. I don’t doubt the Christian Bible will say something similar, as will the Koran. So is one right and the other wrong? Life is never so simple. We can use our desires to improve our worlds we live in, to help us strive, but if we can’t do anything about it then we will only suffer through our desire. If something is out of our control what is the point of allowing desire to take over. We must learn to be more objective, just be careful not to desire it, although it must be in our control so surely that’s fine. I was going to suggest it’s a crazy minefield with no answer but that all seems pretty simple and straightforward to me. Now then, that palm tree I was thinking about, I’m sure that’s something within my control…

The Present & Desire

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I was thinking today about finding balance in life. I’ve probably mentioned it before but it always appears to be something that alludes me. In one moment I’m dropping everything and running off on an adventure, and the next I’m craving the stability offered from a home that if I’m honest I’ll struggle to create because I’m always running off on the adventures I yearn for after too long in a stable home like environment. Now either that’s an inability to find balance between the two or it’s an example of someone not being happy with what they’ve got and always believing the green happiness grass is just around the other corner. It’s also just an example of someone who wants it all, and probably another few examples of all sorts of things. For the sake of this though lets stick to the idea that I am unable to find the required level of balance.

There once was a time in life that like everyone else I believed that if I just did, saw, bought, met, went to x, y, z then happiness would be sure to follow. I was not conscious of that belief but certainly it was unconsciously there playing a part in my decision making. I am not suggesting for a second I’m some enlightened being who has managed to rise above such things because I still crave all those things in my own little pursuit of happiness but am aware that with their receipt I won’t be taken around some magical corner that happiness was simply hiding behind. It is also probably most likely that accepting this will bring me closer, as well as not actually looking for it in the first place, but as I love missing the point in the moment and clearly only know it intellectually I’ll continue this self-defeating quest.

By not constantly imagining the answer is around some instant corner nobody has ever seen let alone looked around, we must surely stop craving these extreme changes in life, such as finding the answer in some foreign land or by the hearth. Importantly also it takes away from the present, in that you’re neither in the foreign land or at home if your mind is always looking out for some hypothetical feeling of happiness it imagines it should be experiencing. You forget to actually enjoy the place you’ve made the effort to go to or the contentment and security of home when you take the time to relax. I suspect were we to enjoy these things properly we may stop craving them so much when we don’t have them anymore. Have you ever drunk that last mouthful of coffee without realising before looking in the cup to find there is no more and feeling unsatisfied. Compare that to really taking the time to enjoy and appreciate that last mouthful; you are content with what you’ve had, you feel satisfied. Why would life on a larger scale be any different.

Abre Los Ojos

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

My existence at present is a difficult one. Well actually in many ways it is both easy and enjoyable but it lacks things which I am used to from past moments. I am currently working as a renovator, painter, handyman and all round dogsbody for a mate and the work is straightforward, as is my ability to be flexible in regards my working hours much to his constant frustrations. I have been at it now for the best part of two months and I won’t deny there is something very comfortable and enjoyable about this version of existence. The other day when returning from Cockermouth I even felt a senses of warmth and happiness as I got back to my place. This is not necessarily a new experience but is unique in that I can’t really think of a time I have ever lived alone properly in a flat for any extended period of time and then to have that feeling on top of it was very interesting to observe. I have agreed to stay for another three months until the end of February, but who know it may even end up being the end of March.

The issue then is my lack to appreciation for what this opportunity gives me. I may have just changed my mind while writing that one sentence. Ideally I would be continuing to read and learn things but I am forever too tired in the evenings. I can’t say I’m not being creative because I have so far managed to maintain this blog but certainly the fact that I have still not finished the first book I started when I arrived is frustrating. The reason I perhaps changed my mind though is that I just realised this life offers so many other things I’m overlooking. I’m gaining a great deal of knowledge on the more practical side of work and life. I could always do things but I’ve discovered painfully that I never really understood the theory behind why or what I was doing. Now I know a hell of a lot more than before. I also get the opportunity to have a stepping stone into living a normal existence instead of just being thrown into it straight from traveling. It is funny though, I’m thirty four years old and I can travel the world and deal with anything that comes up while doing so, but I need to take little baby steps when doing what millions of people do on a daily basis.

What a lucky boy I am. There is clearly so much to gain from this current situation. We miss so much around us when we become fixed and obsessed with something that we desire, we often miss what is right in from of our eyes.