Kill desire and you should be perfectly safe. And dead for that matter.
If there's one thing I despise about desire, are its highs and lows. First you get kicked sky-high and then you fall. If desire isn't met, then you should prepare yourself for some really nasty withdrawal symptoms.
Whenever I truly desired someone and it wasn't reciprocated, I suffered. They never knew, of course. Only I knew how much it cost me. I've always been proud and unwilling to chase, even if I was going crazy. I never chase. I speak, and if the other person is not interested, it is what it is. In my case, it is heartache and suffering until desire subsides again and I go back to my routine, feeling as exhausted and disillusioned as a junkie going cold turkey. Life is what it is, and I am what I am. I don't hold it personally against anyone. I have enough feelings for ten people. Sometimes I also feel I have the bad luck of ten people. The mysteries of attraction are not for the sane or the weak-hearted. Thankfully I am neither. So I'll just eat some chocolate and sleep and not ponder further on what I can't solve or understand. Right? Right.
Lately I am trying to walk as much as possible. It keeps my murdering impulses in check. It also keeps my tummy in check. I exercise for an hour, then return home and stuff my face with food and chocolate. It feels great.
While walking round and round a small football stadium I have in my neighbourhood, my mind races. The rest of me refuses to run. (If anyone asks me why not, I tell them with a deadpan expression my religion prohibits it and secretly laugh at their confusion.) So while my body does its thing, more often than not my characters and heroes are doing their thing too. I watch them converse, or re-play scenes in my mind's eye and discover details I wasn't aware of. I host entire worlds in my head, complete with people, places, history. I know details so intimate and personal about my heroes no-one else knows. And the moment I'm gone, they'll be gone too. I am their access point to this world. Unless I discover the secret of immortality, that access point will inevitably be revoked.
I recently watched the 2nd season of Sense8. It was a fantastic experience. There are moments one of the protagonists is in danger and the entire cluster gathers behind them to help and support them. That's what happens with me too every time I'm distressed. I run to my heroes. They are always there for me, there will always be there for me. It's a bond no-one can understand.
Sometimes I talk to people about incidents I am writing and describe what happens. It really surprises others that I treat my heroes as if they are real. To me they are very real. I just happen to be the focal point of their existence,
the place they exist inside. I could be a nebula instead of a human
being. It wouldn't have made a difference to the people I host. And that's not because I can't tell reality from fantasy. I can distinguish it just fine, thank you very much. Reality is the boring one.
A friend told me it would be amazing if fantasy heroes were the ones to choose a possible author to host them and not the other way around. If you think about it, it makes sense. I would have chosen a person with similar idiosyncrasies to host me if I was a fantastic being. For all I know, I may be hosted by one such, and right now they are busy writing about my life. There's no way I would be able to tell. I would be sure I am real. I mean, I AM sure I am real. Aren't you?
So I walk around and an army follows me wherever I go. I love them more than anything. They are the transcendence of my mind and flesh. I will age and die, they won't. They are the best parts of my being, my agony and pain turned into gold, the distillation of countless lives into the best of all possible worlds: pure ideas. The poetry and transcendence of our very existence.
I wonder if the universe provides extra protection for writers, when so much more than just a single life is at stake if something happens to them. It probably does. (See? Chocolate always makes me optimistic. 😁 😝) (If you enjoy my content, please consider supporting what I do. Thank you.)
