wanting more

Ramon Casas

Where I grew up, not much changes. Not the weather, routine, predictability. I longed for the opposite: novelty, expression, individuality.

When I left my hometown I wrote: walking through this door means knowing many other doors will swing shut. But I wholeheartedly choose to walk through it anyways. I wanted more. I loved my hometown, but had to leave. I remember that pull inside my chest, that tug of yearning. I’ve never regretted following it.

The biggest shame is never admitting to yourself what you actually want. I’m sure you’ve witnessed or experienced this in small ways. E.g., showing up to something out of obligation rather than actual desire, dating casually when you want a relationship, wanting to leave and always staying. Some decisions look really compelling on paper, but make you feel empty. Because they’re fundamentally not what you want. Trying to fulfilll desires learned from other people feels like eating a lot and never feeling satisfied. You’re always left wanting more.

In my early relationships I was obsessed with the idea that I had to hide what I wanted. My literary/movie-driven ideal of love was to have someone who understood me entirely without me having to say anything. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself: in order to actually address the desire of being truly seen, I needed to stop constantly hiding, deflecting, avoiding. What I needed was to slow down. Ask. Tell them what I wanted. Simply be held.

Nowadays I’m attempting to communicate better. That means keeping a channel clear for my desires to speak through.

I can easily tell you how I think the sky feels bluer than usual, that the air is crisper and colder and lighter on my skin than any other day. How I bought an overpriced oat milk latte again. How I stared at a warm screen too long. How I’m flying too much these next few months.

But saying the important stuff is a lot harder and a lot more necessary: whether I’m feeling heard, feeling loved. In sharing what I want, I hope to find it within you. In me, I hope you find what you are seeking too.

Here’s another desire: I’ve wanted to write for 8 years now.

I am finally doing it and it feels indescribably good. Maybe not mastery quite yet. But it feels like the beginning of commitment to something deep and true. These days I think creation is my statement of aliveness. Of liberation. This desire runs very deep beneath my surface. Michelangelo: Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

I keep these words by Mary Oliver close to my heart. The desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God inside each of us. I really, really want to make something beautiful.

Wisdom is not running from your desires, but making peace with them. I’ve noticed this: my hollow, empty wants — prestige, status, wealth — shrink smaller and smaller each year. What lasts are the truer desires. The ones threaded deep and luminous within me: creativity, community, love, mastery. Recognizing the difference is the beginning of self awareness.

Everything comes back to self knowledge, doesn’t it? I think it’s important to try and see yourself clearly. Including your relationship to wanting, to desire. To remain gentle with yourself as you seek. To follow the feeling where it leads.

-N.

PS: I wrote about desire here too

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