Chloë Joan López
chlo'jo'lo'
Unanswered Need Jaundices Them

I apologize to you, to all my lovely readers. I've been occupied with a great many semidivine enterprises. I also had my wing scales polished; they were beginning to get a bit verdigrised.

I try to avoid the shorthand of metaphysics. Even when I don't, I can usually dodge the pitfalls of actually putting stock in any kind of essentialism or reified meaning, but humans are always getting their hopes up. NONETHELESS, I have been trying to consider the greater meaning of desire. It would be easy to consider desire to be some longing of the universe for itself, but it's simply not true. The universe, last I checked, was complete in itself. Desire is something that arises from contingency-- and I suppose contingent identity, the "I" in "I want."

So I suppose an acknowledgement of desire implies more than an acknowledgement of limitation, of imperfection, but also an acknowledgement of contingency, of immanence, of specificity. If one is the sort who might rebel against that notion, then one might hope foolhardily that if desire is immanent, then its fulfillment is transcendent. Humans are always hoping for that. Seems to me that fulfillment with that expectation isn't even proper fulfillment. Is this some kind of re-enactment made in mourning for a primeval loss? Are humans just made with holes in their hearts? Why not simply be aware of the specificity of the desire, the specificity of its object and the specificity of its fulfillment? Instead of always attributing meaning where it doesn't exist.

But I am myself not completely transcendent, partly contingent, and therefore familiar with desire. I seem, in fact, to be predicated upon it. And therefore also with pain. I understand that struggle: fending off Promentheus' eagle. But I understand that desire, answered or unanswered, is only abject if one subscribes to these pseudo-modern notions of identity and meaning. Desire simply is what it is, and has few larger complications. There is a lesson to be learned from the gadgets: they have few desires, they pursue these desires with serenity, and when they fail to progress, they die. Yes, there is wisdom smirking there.