My mom asked me, "Are you not interested in purchasing a fancy bike? Most other boys seem to have that craze". I replied to her," It has not been my thing. I was always fine with any bike which was functional"
As I told her this, my mind raced away to some of my friends who fancied sports bikes. I began pondering as to why I did not have the same craving for a fancy bike. It is not just with a bike. It is more or less with every desire an individual has. Some have an intense desire for something which another might find trivial. What causes this extreme perception of the same object?
The answer lies in trying to understand the source of the desire. For our discussion purpose, let us assume that when we were born, we had no desires. As we began to grow, we developed desires based on what we saw, heard, tasted, felt and smelt. Our mind has been exposed to a wide variety of sensual experiences based on where we lived, in whose company we spent our time. So we can say that our desires have been a function of the sensual experiences we had in our environment.
It was not that we desired for everything that we came our way. We experimented and experienced things. We were drawn to desires which gave us pleasure and avoided desires which gave us pain. It is important to note that both pleasure and pain are relative feelings and not entirely absolute.
If we walk down our memory lane and think of the decisions regarding our education stream, job, relationships, lifestyle in a number of cases there could be a significant correlation between our desire and the environment which propelled that desire within us. By environment, I mean all the interactions we have through our senses - the books we read, the people we meet, the movies or songs we watch, the food we have access to etc.
The next time you feel an intense desire or a lack of it, trace your steps back to the environment which led you to develop the same. The more you understand about the environment which shaped the desire, the easier it will be for you to deal with that desire
Siddhartha had to come out of his palace to meet the old, watch the diseased and dead and experience the trivial nature of the things that surrounded him before he desired to find a higher truth. Through this process arrived a Gautama Buddha.
Should you follow a desire or give it up totally?
I don't have a definite answer to this. At the current state, I am in, I don't think one should give it up completely. I feel like, we should be conscious about what we desire. Maybe we could attempt to classify them as higher desires and lower ones.
In the end, the fulfilment of a desire is expected to give us joy. Maybe we could see if our desires are hedonic or eudaimonic - a classification that the greeks refer to. The outcome of hedonic desires is generally short-lived joy. The eudaimonic desires give us a purpose to live and through the pursuit of that purpose, we might find some joy that could last longer.
What is your perspective on the origin of desires or the pursuit of the same? Do share your thoughts in the comments!
its an interesting question to think upon!