DESIRE
This image, which hangs on my living room wall, expresses my complicated feelings about DESIRE.
HOBOKEN, DECEMBER 1, 2025. DESIRE. Say it out loud. Again. Again. Whisper it. Shriek it. Murmur it. Chuckle it. Sob it. Chirp it. Shout it. Snarl it. Groan it. Growl it. Whine it. Moan it. Preach it.
Say DESIRE in a squeaky falsetto, in as profundo a basso as you can muster. Say it dolefully, conspiratorially, sneeringly. Ask: “DESIRE?” Reply: “DESIRE!” Emphasize different syllables: DUH, ZAI, UR. Say it backward. Say it sloooowlyyyyy, stretching out each syllable.
Say DESIRE 100 times. Make that 600, no, 1,200, in every possible way. Should take 20 minutes, assuming one DESIRE per second. Do this and the word becomes unfamiliar, strange. So does that to which the word refers. You examine DESIRE with clinical curiosity, detachment, as if you’ve never seen it before, it’s alien to you.
That’s what I’m guessing will happen. I’ve never performed this exercise before. But I plan to, because I’d like to get a little distance from DESIRE. That’s why I’m writing this column. In my experience, if you zoom in on something, stick your face in it, it loses its meaning, and its hold over you. Ideally.
By DESIRE I don’t just mean sexual desire.
Oh, who am I kidding, that’s what I mean. Mainly.
duh-ZAI-ur
When I tell Michael, a philosopher, I’m writing about DESIRE, he offers a couple of observations. DESIRE is a social construct, he says, the product of cultural conditioning. Michael doesn’t mean only whether you’re gay or straight, dominant or submissive, he means DESIRE itself. From a very early age our culture inflames us via TV, films, all manner of media.
Michael adds that Plato, in The Republic, describes DESIRE as “tyrannical.” It can enslave you, if you let it. And this is before online porn! Older characters in The Republic express relief at DESIRE’s diminished sway.
My DESIRE feels pretty biological, I tell Michael, more nature than nurture. And far from diminishing with age, DESIRE seems bossier lately, more tyrannical, maybe because I feel death’s approach. Eros and Thanatos coil together in my psyche’s cellar.
I want to turn the tables on DESIRE, so I’m the tyrant. I want to choose when and how to feel DESIRE, exercising my free will. But if you choose DESIRE, is it DESIRE?
DUH-zai-ur
Buddha says DESIRE is the root of suffering. Or does he? I could ask Google AI what Buddha says, but I don’t trust it. What does an algorithm know of DESIRE?
On the other hand, what is human DESIRE but an algorithm instilled in us by natural selection?
DESIRE, when unrequited, or simply asymmetrical, can break your heart. Buddha is right about that, that’s why he preaches detachment. But DESIRE can also result in ecstasy, bliss, joy. Is the pleasure worth the pain? That’s the dilemma. For me, so far, yes. Although I’m not sure I have a choice.
duh-zai-UR
“Binx” confesses that part of him is starting to see sex as pointless. You have sex, you have it again, what have you gained? Accomplished?
I’m amused and horrified by Binx’s comment. I reply, Umm, procreation? Pleasure? What more do you want?
Binx shrugs. Has he achieved the Buddhist goal of detachment from DESIRE, or is he just depressed? Depressed, I’m guessing.
But Binx has a point. You huff and puff your way to the top of the hill, you roll down to the bottom. Huff and puff, roll to the bottom. Repeat. Like Sisyphus. What’s the point?
From a biological perspective, the point of life, and hence of sex, is to make more life. Repeat. Repeat.
DUUUUUH-zzzaiii-urrrrr
“Ram,” a software engineer from Nepal I meet at a Buddhist retreat, claims to have reached enlightenment. He sees the world as an illusion, akin to a movie. He’s aware of the emptiness of things all the time, even when he’s sleeping.
Ram sought this state, that’s why he spent years meditating and going on retreats. But rather than feeling blissfully one with everything, Ram feels isolated. Lonely. Does that mean he’s not really enlightened? I don’t know. I’m not sure I believe in enlightenment. But it just shows how, one way or another, DESIRE persists. [See Postscript.]
duuuuuh-zzzaiii-URRRRR
In season 3 of “White Lotus,” two retired criminals, played by Walton Goggins and Sam Rockwell, who haven’t seen each other in years, catch up over drinks in Bangkok. Goggins is visiting Thailand, Rockwell moved there years ago because he’s into Asian women.
Rockwell has picked up a little Buddhism, which has him wondering, “What is desire?” He explores this question by having all kinds of sex with all kinds of Thai women, often several a night. He becomes curious about what it’s like to be a Thai woman. He dresses as a woman, perfumes himself and hires Thai and western men to “rail the shit” out of him.
The scene is funny, because Goggins wears a what-the-fuck expression as he listens to his tough old partner in crime tell this story. But the scene is poignant, too, because Rockwell is on a spiritual quest, he’s seeking enlightenment. “I guess I was trying to fuck my way to the answer,” he tells his mystified buddy.
In a later scene, Rockwell seems very far from enlightenment. He hires a bunch of women to party with him and Goggins, but Goggins isn’t in the mood (he’s seeking revenge in Thailand, not enlightenment). When Goggins splits, Rockwell looks bereft.
RU-AIZ-HUD
“Sean” tells me he’s been undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. He has lost his libido, he says, he feels zero DESIRE. Zilch. He has a hard time even remembering what it was like to be horny.
Far from being horrified by the absence of DESIRE, Sean enjoys it. He feels as though a mist that was enveloping him, of which he wasn’t even aware, has dissipated. He is seeing the world clearly, objectively, for the first time since puberty.
Part of me pities Sean, another part envies him. I wonder how his wife feels.
DESIRE????
In Vonnegut’s novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Fred, a guy in a bar, shows another guy, Harry, a photo of a “girl” in a bikini. Fred nudges Harry and asks with a leer, “Like that, Harry?”
“That’s not a girl,” Harry replies. “That’s a piece of paper.”
You could use similar reasoning to demystify all objects of desire. Take your beloved, who is lying next to you. Your sensory perceptions of her, and hence your DESIRE for her, stem from electro-chemical signals racing around your brain. From this perspective, that which you DESIRE is an illusion, akin to ink on a piece of paper.
Psychedelics can make you see the illusory nature of things. One part of you stands back and smiles at the absurdity of sex. It’s so bizarre, so funny! This thing humans do! At the same time, another part of you, a deeper-rooted part, remains inflamed.
DESIRE!!!!
I’m driving south on I-95, headed toward Virginia, and I think, I should do the DESIRE thing! I say DESIRE aloud every which way, and it works. I lose my habituation, while I’m chanting, to the word, the concept--and everything else, for that matter.
I feel silly, in a good way, and so does the world. While I’m yelling DESIRE, hissing it, yodeling it, saying it backward, everything seems light, harmless, not to be taken seriously. To someone in a nearby car or truck, I’m an old guy grinning like an ape as he sings along with a favorite song.
Then I stop, and in the silence, the pause, as I barrel down the highway, I look inside myself, to see if anything has changed, and there it is, waiting, insistent as ever: DESIRE.
Postscript: While I was writing this column, through sheer coincidence, my buddy Tom Ferris sent me a video in which an avatar of Alan Watts talks about “Why Spiritually Awake People Can’t Find Love Anymore.”
Further Reading:
A Buddhism Critic Goes on a Buddhist Retreat
Nicaragua, Quantum Mechanics and Other “Solutions” to Habituation