Desire1

I don't know what I want. Even when I know, I don't seem to,
like when I order the second best choice in a restaurant,
knowing as soon as the waitress is gone (or as the food
arrives) that I should have gotten that other dish. But
that's nothing compared to other choices. These are more
complicated. Wants, predicted responses, needs, costs,
benefits- all manner of uncertainties get thrown into the
mix.

Beyond that are the moral, health, monetary, guilt, lust,
intellectual, aesthetic, time, physical discomfort,
laziness, self-consciousness, social taboo, and other assorted
fears and considerations.

So what I really want gets lost among the other parameters. It
seems like it should be easy to strip things down mentally
to bare desire. Know thyself. Ha! As a child, I found the
coin toss a very useful tool. When the result was in- heads
or tails- it was often easy to gauge my reaction, to feel
disappointment or relief, like the resulting action had
already been taken. I didn't actually let the toss decide.
But it was a further step beyond the mere theoretical. Then
I could generally make the best feeling choice. Sometimes I
forget that simple method of clearing my mental cobwebs or
pulling back those curtains of complications.


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