Thursday, February 22, 2007

Grudge Match '07: Desired vs. Required

In 1998, I bought this Jenny Holzer sign from the gift shop at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
I've kept it around me for almost 10 years, moving it from office to home office to another office and another. Every time I look at it, it reminds me that it's OK to want things that are bad for me, as long as I don't act on those desires.

By desires, I mean everything from fried food to binge drinking to speeding to getting involved with inappropriate men. These things are bad. You'd think I would have stopped wanting to hurt myself by now, but I haven't. Want and Need fight it out every so often. Last year, it was sugar. Before that, alcohol. Before that, it was him...or him...or him. I can want them, I can talk about them, but I don't need them. I have to protect myself from those desires. I require safety and security and comfort, but what I want never seems to involve any of those.

This is my talisman. Because I will always find something that I'll want to do without a net.

"Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure." ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

2 comments:

  1. "You can't always get what you want

    But if you try sometimes you just might find

    You just might find

    You get what you need"

    - Jagger / Richards

    ReplyDelete

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