Wanting

When I was a child I wanted almost nothing. This is true. I don’t know why. At Christmas, I’d circle about twenty things in the catalogue. I’d get a few of them. Other than Christmas, I did not ask for much.

I did not want position.

I did not want or need friends.

I was completely content.

Because of this, I noticed everything.

I eventually wanted a guitar and an aquarium. I got them. These two things kept me busy for ten years.

I think when you have less, you notice more. I think the noticing makes you smarter. Of course, being young is the time when your brain is fully plastic and you are absorbing things like crazy anyway. So I may be conflating.

But more to the point, I think being in a state of wanting is a state of contraction. This state of contraction certainly makes you less able to notice things, to take on new information.

Clearly, being Westerners, the whole system is fueled by individual desires. This will not change.

Maybe the thing to desire is to desire a world that has much less in it. Less distraction. Less.

I never developed a deflecting skin.