I want it. I gotta have it. Give it to me. Consequence be damned.
Every Desire Creates a Vulnerability
Every vulnerability is eventually uncovered.
That discovery inevitably results in exploitation.
The Big Three: Food. Sex. Shelter.
These three things drive nearly every thought that passes through the brain of any sentient creature, and that includes us. You know, humans.
Tied to, and branching off from these three biological imperatives is a vast myriad array of related wants, wishes and desires.
We want food that is pleasing to the taste buds. We want sex because we must reproduce. Reproduction is our core purpose. It is ensured by and satiates desire for sex. We want shelter that protects as well as improves comfort.
We want to avoid ravenous hunger, so food must be readily accessible at all times. We want to manage how often our enjoyment of sex results in the birth of offspring. We want our comfort to include entertainment, because being entertained feels good in our brain. We want. We want. We want.
Vulnerability is the Child of Desire
Desire: Call it want, need, wish. Feel it as hunger, a pining. Call it ambition, impulse, acquisition or gathering. No matter how you dress it up with words, desire is a core driver of behavior. You can bank on it. You will have them. You will provide what is desired by others, voluntarily or not. Commerce and crime are two faces of the 'meeting of desire' coin.
The Dance Between Desire and Risk
It is not hard to see how wanting a thing or an experience can open you up to danger.
Every time you want something that is not immediately and freely available to you, you are dependent on someone or some thing outside your safety zone to provide it to you. This is the birth of vulnerability.
Most of us recognize this, and we weigh the risks as best we can. We make a decision to either deny ourselves the object of our desire or accept the risk of engaging with unknown situations and unknown entities. The lesser experienced will make poorer decisions in this scenario, which is a factor in why the young and the aged are more likely to fall prey in every sense of that word.
There is Nothing Simple About It
There is nothing simple about desire. Yes, many desires are prompted by specific stimuli and are predictable. Yes, you can lower your exposure to exploitation by reducing the quantity of desires in your life. But there are some things we just must have, and sometimes we are forced to rely on others to fulfill those needs. There's a reason we call the poor and homeless 'the most vulnerable'. Whatever the cause, they must rely on strangers for even their most basic needs.
Desire provides a handle others use to manipulate us. Those who are able will insulate themselves from such manipulation by deriving as much resource as they can from their environment. That means manipulating their environment to benefit themselves. This can mean anything from taking fair advantage to rape, pillage and plunder.
Desire is not something to be eliminated from life. It is something to be understood and once understood, managed. The better an individual is at mastering their own desires, the more they control their destiny.
Controlling my own destiny, to the extent that is possible, is a thing that works. Telling myself no is a good way to do that. It used to be called "self-discipline".
Wow. What a concept.
