Desire is a skill.

Bold title right?
I mean it, and it's a valuable skill at that. Why? Because the markets say so.

All value in the consumer markets is driven through desire. The post rationalisation of usefulness or practicality is only secondary to wanting something because you want it.
Why is usually very subconscious.

When was the last time you purchased something? Why? Why to that answer? Again?

The feeling of wanting is very much valuable because it's how most people make their money. I'm not one to critique the biology which has made us survive so long. So desire can't be some sort of evil. I am also not one to blame capitalism or some other ideology for all the wrong in the world or propose some radical abolition. Actually, I am not going to address society or the ethics yet at all, because I don't feel intellectually fit to do so. I will tackle the individual impact of this mechanism though; through perspective.

If this is the game, why aren't you playing it?

It is possible to make yourself want something if others are making you want something. So why aren't you operating this tool? At least for myself, at some point in life, wanting for ourselves became taboo. This lack of conscious consideration of want has resulted in a subconscious processing and satiation of that human function of collecting, completing, moving, desiring.

I have finally realised what that means for my own mental state. Distraction.
If one doesn't know what they want and doesn't train themselves to want how can one have direction in their actions to acquire that which requires effort? I was listening to Mark Manson's podcast episode on focus and was reminded how important direction is to maintaining focus. I know this is intuitively obvious, but, I realised the main change in my life that has allowed myself to focus more has been intentionality but it hasn't been a conscious decision. So how did it come about??

Wanting something.

At some point in the last four years I made it very clear to myself, by accident, what I wanted. I have had an incredibly strong desire for something that has originated from within myself as a compound of my experiences and that has encouraged me to be incredibly frustrated when other desires that are implanted within me take priority.
Since leaving the social and advertising quadrant of the web I have had even more space for my own desires to fill my actions and thoughts. I now think about why I want things and refine how I want it and whats good and whats bad. I can be critical of it.

What I'm saying is. If you want to do something. Make yourself want it.
If you want too many different things, you can never be passionate about a single thing.
You can't rely on discipline, you can't always rely on feeling good or even good systems.
Hijack your monkey brain and make yourself intensely desire only a few things.

Then you'll do what you want to do.

Love,
arikami aka George W(ith a massive) Bush