55 lines
2.4 KiB
TeX
55 lines
2.4 KiB
TeX
\section{The Species That Longs --- and Knows It}
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\lettrine[lraise=0.15]{H}{uman} beings might almost be defined this way:
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the creature in whom desire is not enough.
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Animals have appetite. Humans have appetite too, of course.
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But humans also have this maddening, magnificent surplus:
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we seek meaning, not just calories;
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beauty, not just shelter;
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truth, not just utility;
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transcendence, not just continuity;
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greatness, not just survival.
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Human beings appear to be split open by a different order of hunger.
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And that is probably where religion, philosophy, and art all come from.
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Not from desire. From Longing.
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This also explains why the mystics often look like anti-desire
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but are actually pro-Longing. A superficial reading of asceticism says the mystics were against wanting. But that's not quite right. They were often against desire precisely because they were servants of Longing. They did not reject appetite because they hated life. They rejected lower satisfactions because they sensed that those satisfactions could sedate the deeper call. In other words: they turned away from what could be satisfied in order to remain faithful to what could not.
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That gives real insight into monks, hermits, troubadours, artists,
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philosophers, saints --- and scientists, frankly.
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A great many of the most remarkable human beings have looked odd
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to ordinary society because they were clearly not optimizing for comfort,
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appetite, or the status quo. They were possessed by something else.
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\medskip
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Some impulses in us want to be satisfied. Others want to be followed.
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Some hungers ask to be fed. Others ask for your life.
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\medskip
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Desire returns you to yourself --- replenished, relieved, back to ``normal.''
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Longing alters you.
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You don't come back the same.
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That's not just directional --- it's transformative.
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Longing is a function that changes its own domain.
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If Longing could be fully satisfied, there would be no cathedrals, no voyages, no metaphysics, no mathematics beyond utility, no symphonies, no saints, no Grail.
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There would only be management.
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And management is not civilization --- it's maintenance.
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Human greatness depends on this strange fact:
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the most important things in us are inexhaustible.
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\medskip
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Desire sustains the given. Longing invites the possible.
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Desire roots us in life. Longing opens us beyond it.
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Desire preserves the creature. Longing creates the cathedral.
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Desire ends in satiety. Longing ends (which it doesn't) in awe and wonder.
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