Tag Archives: Desire

Roar Your Desires to the Heavens

Once upon a time there was a tiger. He was born in the part of the jungle that people haven’t discovered yet, except the people that live there. The people that live there know enough to stay away from where the tigers live. They learn very early, usually from the tribal elders, that a tiger’s roar is unmistakable danger. Whenever you hear the roar of a tiger, it is best to freeze, not make a move or a sound, and slowly and quietly find out which direction the roar is coming from, and as deftly and as quickly as possible, go in the other direction. Or wait, and die.

The people of this tribe are taught to decide quickly when they hear something that represents danger. Not to hesitate. Because those that hesitate, usually become dinner, or sometimes lunch (as leftovers the next day. Tigers aren’t famous for eating breakfast.) They also know that when they are out looking for food, sometimes it’s important to act quickly as well, because when you see something you want, it’s best to act quickly before it gets away. Otherwise you might go hungry. The trick is, for these people, is to decide what you are after, and decide what is good, and what is bad. So when you see something that is good, and you think to yourself, this is really fantastic, I must get this, you can move towards, and alter your behavior to acquire this which is beneficial to you.

But you can forget that, because this story is about the tiger. What happened was this tiger was born, and he happened to be born close to a big fight between two adult tigers. The temperature had been changing, and the migrating zebras made it hard for the tigers to track down their dinner as easily as they used to be able to. One day when the young tiger was out developing his roar the adult tigers were arguing. Some were saying that they needed to migrate west, along with the zebras, to ensure that their food supply would be plentiful. Others were arguing that they should stay put, and wait for the next herd to come through, as they had usually done. They argument got heated, with tigers roaring back and forth, each side illustrating the logic of their respective arguments.

Meanwhile, our little tiger friend came up, completely unaware of what was going on. He decided to have a go at his full strength roar that he’d been developing so far. When he bellowed out roar, he was completely surprised when the head tiger turned and told him to shut up. The adults were discussing serious matters. This was not playtime.

The young tiger slinked back into the jungle, wondering what he’d done wrong. A few months went by, and every time the young tiger was in a situation where he wanted to roar, all he could hear was the lead tigers voice in his head” “Shut up! This is not playtime!” followed by a flash of tiger anxiety. He looked around at all the other tigers. They seemed to be able to roar without a problem. Was there something wrong with him?

Finally when he was out moping around, he could hear an adult human talking to a younger human. He said:

“It’s ok. Scream as loud as you want. If people don’t want to hear what you have to say, that is there problem, not yours. Maybe they are mad because you can express yourself, and they can’t. Maybe they are angry at something that happened to them earlier. The truth of the matter is, you never really know what other people are thinking, so you might as well enjoy their reaction when it’s good, and ignore it and move on when it’s not good. Understand?”

“I think so,” came the young voice.

“Let me put it like this. You were born above all the animals in that you can speak, think, sing, and express yourself in beautiful ways. Your voice is the voice of the gods. Your desires were put inside you not to be held and bottled up, but to be shouted. If other’s can’t express themselves, it’s up to you to show them how. You understand that, don’t you?

He did, and so did the young tiger, who grew up to be the most fierce tiger the jungle has ever seen.

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The Expression of Desire at the Third Stage

I was taking the train downtown this evening to pick up a pair of shoes I’d ordered. I found a pair last week that I’d really liked, but they didn’t have my particular size, so they had to call another store to get the right size. Tonight was the first chance I’d had since then to go back and pick them up. On the way there, I saw an acquaintance that I talk to sometimes.

He was telling me about this book that he was reading, it sounded like a personal development book of some sort, because the guy in the book was talking about different ways to look at life. He likes to read those kind of books. Come to think of it, I wish I would have written down the title, although if I see it again I’ll probably remember it. You know how that goes. You notice something, and you tell yourself that you really like this, and you want to see it again, but for some reason you don’t take the time to write it so that you can later remember it.

I can’t remember how many times I’ve really wanted to look at this or that on the internet, based on what I hear or read, but by the time I get home, I can’t remember what it was. Perhaps I should carry around one of those small note pads to write myself messages. I kind of like getting messages from myself.

Anyways, the guy was saying that humans go through three stages in life. Well, not exactly. He was saying that there are three stages that are possible for us to go through, but most of us only go through two, maybe two and a half. Some of us can glimpse the third stage. And one of the great things about being able to glimpse the third stage, even once, is that because you can see what’s up ahead, you will never fall back to your old ways.

The first stage is infancy. We have desires, and we express them the only way we know how. We cry and scream, and if that doesn’t work, then we scream and cry. It works ok if we get picked up right away, but if there is a time lapse, we start to wonder what the heck is going on. And that creates confusion, and since the mind hates confusion, it comes up with a reason why our expression of desire isn’t being immediately met.  So we start to develop anxiety about expressing our desires, because sometimes they get fulfilled, and sometimes they don’t. Since we can’t make any words, or can’t move around much, we don’t have much options except to lie there passively and hope.

The second stage of life is when we develop motor and vocal skills. We can move around, talk, walk, form sentences. When we have a desire at this stage, we can articulate it in a number of ways. We can move around and ask other people. We can even ask in different languages if we want. The problem with this stage is that we still carry that anxiety from long ago, when the mere expression of desire caused anxiety. Before, we really had no control over when or even if the desire would be fulfilled. Scientists have done plenty of experiments that show uncertainty is one of the greatest sources of anxiety, adversely affecting both mental and physical health. So for most of us, the mere expression of desire is linked with anxiety deep within our subconscious. It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just the way our brains grow.  Unfortunately, many people stay stuck in this level their whole lives. The best strategy for some people is to blame some aspect of the outside world for not getting the good stuff in life.

The third stage of life is the best part. This is when we realize that the expression of desire is but the starting point to a life full of abundance, happiness, wealth, fantastic relationships, and every other cool thing you can imagine. The trick is to begin to notice on a deep level that if our desires aren’t fulfilled, it means nothing about us personally, only that we have about a million other ways to keep expressing your desire until it gets fulfilled.  Fully adult, you can realize that simply because you can walk and talk, and read and write, you really do have the power to create whatever life you want. And creating the life you want is merely a matter of tapping into your natural genius creativity, and plugging away until you eventually make all your dreams come true.

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Discover Something You Knew Already

One of the great things about my new neighborhood is all the small local supermarkets which are filled with locally grown foods. I enjoy cooking, so naturally I enjoy shopping for different foods to cook. Like sometimes I’ll cook a big pot of something that I’ll eat for the next several days, and other times I’ll buy several different kinds of ingredients, and then figure out what to cook day by day, in smaller amounts.

The second thing I discovered about having so many supermarkets around is being able to discover what kinds of unique style each market has. Of course they all have the main ingredients, milk, eggs, peanuts. But different markets have different kinds of vegetables, and fish, and different kinds and cuts of meat. And I find it really easy to become curious about what this has, and what that has.

Like when you buy a new computer that has all kinds of pre loaded software. You can find it easy to develop a desire to want to know more. And the more you discover, the more it makes you realize how much there really is here. I bought a laptop a couple of years ago, and was in the unfortunate situation of having to be in the hospital for a few days. It wasn’t any big deal, I didn’t need surgery or anything, but being in the hospital sure is boring. And a friend brought my laptop for me to play with. And even though that at the time I had already been using it for almost a year, I was still able to get really curious about what I could find to help me have fun while I was laying in the hospital. And I found several games that I didn’t even know that I had, and they really helped me to pass the time.

It’s funny when that happens. You see something that you’ve seen before, and you think you already know everything there is to know about this. But the more you keep reading, the more you can really start to want to discover more and more. Like when you have a friend for a long time, and you discover something about them that you hadn’t know for a long time. I had a friend once, and we’d know each other for years before I realized she had a thing for Japanese Anime. Personally, I don’t really see the draw, but to each his own, right?

Of course because of all this, I’m going to need to go grocery shopping soon. I can’t wait to see how much I will become curious to see what I can discover something new, but I’m sure you’ve realized by now that that was something you knew already.

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