What Do You Want?

In Babylon 5, that was a very Shadow question - to the point of pissing off Kosh. It's also a question that plagues me constantly in ways large and small.

I face it in little ways daily, deciding what to eat or what to do during the evening. It's so very rare that I have an answer, rather just sort of... do something. There's a choice involved, but it's not backed by any real desire.

It's come up more than a few times over the holiday season and birthday period, and I've really had to scrounge for anything resembling answers. I picked up a few video games, and that's fine - they provide entertaining distraction, which is nice to have. But beyond that?

I possess enough physical stuff that it actually bothers me to a degree. This compounds with (and may well be because of) my reluctance to part with things. I have boxes of comic books and Magic cards that might theoretically be worth something, but are not worth the effort to liquidate, so they just sit. I have camping gear that I use once every year or two maybe. I have Rock Band/DDR accessories that do nothing but collect dust. Books. VCR tapes. DVDs. Gallery and Dragon magazines from the days I held subscriptions. It all takes up space and none of it is something I just want to throw out, but... it accumulates without offering any real practical use. There are some days I think about just tossing some of it in a dumpster, but it hasn't happened yet.

Keenly aware of all of that, I've become reluctant to offer any encouragement to adding to it. Sure, I like Legos. They're cool. But a majority of mine sit in a pile in a box that really doesn't need to get bigger. There's all sorts of neat, geeky stuff available out there, but I can't say I really want much of it because it would just add to "stuff sitting around."

Even money isn't particularly appealing. I mean, a certain amount of it is required to maintain my lifestyle, sure, but most amounts that might move around lack sufficient meaning. As long as I bring in enough, it's enough (and if I didn't, that would be a bit more need than want anyway). I've considered what would be required to make a difference in my life financially. As I have a car that runs fine, and no major issues, I think any amount short of about $60,000 would have very temporary effects. That's about the point where we're talking pay-off-the-mortgage amounts of money, which would free me of some monthly payments, which would make a notable impact on my monthly finances.

And drawing out the focus a little more, we get into the more philosophical issues. I don't really want... to be married, to have children, to live somewhere else, to have any particular job or title or diploma, to have a huge house (though this once appealed to me in my youth). This sort of thing leaves me without any real life goals or drive to attain them. Cause or effect of depression, I'm not sure, but it's definitely connected.

I find it... well, I want to say "ironic," but I would be misusing the word in the way many do. There have been many religions/philosophies over the years that see want and desire as sinful, encouraging contentment with what one has. This is, perhaps not coincidentally, a good way to encourage a sort of social order. Content masses don't overthrow the privileged, right?

When I think about it, I feel like the only thing I really want is... to want something, I guess.