Dear Reader, I haven’t done a big introspective post about my feelings in a while, but I’m feeling it tonight. So buckle up, or hit the eject button. If you’re still here, here’s what I’ve been thinking about:
I am infested with “should”s. They motivate my actions. They are the core of my judgments. “I should do this.” “I should not do that.” This infestation has been going on so long that its roots extend deep into the core of my identity.
I started paying attention to these “should”s a year or two ago (thanks therapy!), and at first, my main concern with them was that they made me feel bad. As I have increased my awareness of these “should”s and am learning to change the patterns of thinking that cause suffering, I have uncovered a much more insidious effect.
The “should”s, reasonable or otherwise, have taken up so much space in my brain they have edged out the “want”s. Not only do they edge them out, they also have a way of turning an activity that might start out with “I want to” into some sort of commitment that becomes “I should”. Sometimes the “should” is tied up in (perceived) commitments other people. Sometimes the “should” emerges because I have instrumentalized the activity. I’m no longer doing it because I want to, no longer doing it for the sake of doing it, instead I’m feeling like I “should” do it because it’s a step towards some other disconnected goal or reason or obligation.
And when I manage to clear away enough “should”s to make space for an “I want” it’s so quiet I can’t make out what it is that it’s saying. I do lots of things that I enjoy, but I feel adrift when I try to dig into thinking about what I want. Somehow it’s not quite the same. I feel out of practice. I want to be practiced at wanting! An expert wanter!
A Brief Aside on the Like Button
One “want” that has not been pushed aside by the mountain of “should”s is the desire for social validation. I have stopped using most forms of social media because I get addicted to the hits of social validation in a way that ultimately makes me feel bad.
Even on those that I still use (Discord), I feel an addictive pull towards firing off a clever comment or a useful piece of advice, and then anxiously awaiting a reaction emoji or reply.
“Wanting” these tiny hits of low-stakes social validation is a “want” I don’t feel out of practice at. Although I do feel like it is in its most ultra-processed, low-nutrition form when it is expressed by wanting emoji reacts.
Rediscovering “I Want”
I have developed a three-part plan to become an expert wanter, consisting of: secrets, mindfulness, and obsession. I will develop a secret hobby, I will engage in mindfulness, and I will say yes to getting obsessed. I suspect this “plan” will evolve as I continue to explore these ideas, but it felt good to write it up in my web journal to help clarify my thinking.
Secret Hobby
My first strategy was to start a secret hobby. The two requirements for this hobby were:
- It can’t be directly useful for my work or my art practice.
- I can’t tell anybody what it is.
It’s not instrumental, it’s not for something else, and I can’t get social kudos by telling people about it. (Even telling people I have a secret hobby is probably dubious, but I’m relying on the fact that this blog doesn’t have comments to smooth over that aspect.)
The purpose of doing the secret hobby is to do the secret hobby (thanks Thich Nhat Hanh).
Making a list of secret hobby options was a lot of fun. Picking my secret hobby was remarkably difficult. The one I picked was one of the ones that I felt most resistant to and is something that I’ve wanted to get into many times in the past and have chosen not to because I didn’t have a good reason besides “I want to.” I’ve been at it about a month now, and it’s incredibly liberating for the only reason I’m doing it to be “I want to.”
Mindfulness
Practicing mindfulness serves two purposes in this effort. First, through paying attention to my thoughts, I notice when I am thinking “I should do this” or when I am thinking “I want to do this.” I notice how I feel when I think those thoughts. I noticed what I was doing before I thought those thoughts, and I will notice what I do after I think those thoughts.
Second, the emphasis on paying attention non-judgmentally is critical to escape the trap of “I should be thinking ‘I want’.” One of the reasons “should” is so tricky is because I am so used to it being the way I motivate myself to do things. I don’t want to be paying attention to my thoughts, notice that I have been thinking “I should” and then pile onto myself with a “I shouldn’t be thinking I should.” That’s where the emphasis on non-judgment is useful.
Increasing my awareness though meditation practice helps me to be more mindful more often.
Obsession
I love to get obsessed. I love to dig deep into a new interest. And yet I find that so often I hold myself back. I’m writing this as the month-long play-by-post mega-game OVER/UNDER is wrapping up. OVER/UNDER was a lot of things, but for this post the two most relevant things are: 1. I thought it was really cool and 2. to really engage with it required devoting a ton of time to it.
I frequently found myself thinking “I wish I could clear my schedule and fully dive into this wild game, instead of mostly being a lurker.”
The thing is, I have a great deal of control over my schedule. I could have cleared my schedule enough to fully dive in. But I didn’t. I held back. I wasn’t sure if I “should”.
I don’t want to hold back! I want to chase a flight of fancy in a mad, breathless, dash, even if I trip over some roots along the way. I want to stop letting the fancies fly past as I hem and haw about whether or not I “should” chase them.
I’m not sure what the next thing will be, but when I feel the tug, I will say yes! I will buy a new notebook for this new obsession and fill it with my experiences.
Finally
I’m still not clear why it feels like there is such a big difference between all the things that I do that I genuinely enjoy doing, and this amorphous idea that I am struggling with being able to put a clear shape to the things that I want. But it feels like there is something there, and I am excited about my secret hobby, and I’m excited about saying yes to new obsessions. And if you’ve read this far, I’m excited you’ve come along for the ride. If any of this resonates with you, I hope these rambles have given you something interesting to think about!