{"id":58796,"date":"2016-08-15T13:06:57","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T18:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=58796"},"modified":"2021-09-25T15:50:34","modified_gmt":"2021-09-25T20:50:34","slug":"what-do-you-want-to-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/advice\/what-do-you-want-to-want\/","title":{"rendered":"What Do You Want to Want?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vintage<\/a><\/p>\n

Editor’s note: This is a guest article from Kyle Eschenroeder<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

“The best thing is to want what is right (the honesta<\/em>) and not to stray from the path.\u201d –Seneca<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c[W]e go to far less trouble about making ourselves happy than about appearing to be so.” –La Rochefoucauld<\/p>\n

\u201cMy life \u2026 is for itself and not for a spectacle.\u201d –Ralph Waldo Emerson<\/p>\n

\u201cTo think that I\u2019ve wasted years of my life, that I\u2019ve longed to die, that I\u2019ve experienced my greatest love, for a woman who didn\u2019t appeal to me, who wasn\u2019t even my type!\u201d –Marcel Proust<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My biggest fear is to live a life I regret.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to fall into the trap Proust is talking about and spend life blindly chasing something you never actually wanted.<\/p>\n

Blindly following your desires<\/a> makes you a slave to your impulses — slave to the assumptions of those around you, the advertisements you\u2019re exposed to, and the confused chemical signals of your body.<\/p>\n

Our default is to spend our life as rats blindly chasing the next dopamine hit.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a setting easily adjusted, but it\u2019s worth shifting our aims and becoming fully human.<\/p>\n

If we don\u2019t pause and ask ourselves what we want to want<\/em>, we will spend our lives focused on unhealthy aims defined for us by others and the worst parts of ourselves. We will pass these bad assumptions about life onto our children and loved ones. We will reinforce these boring, desperate defaults in everyone we encounter.<\/p>\n

To achieve freedom we must be able to think for ourselves. If we don\u2019t cut to the core and reprogram our wants (our desires) then our best-case scenario is to be the most successful, rich, or famous slave. If we never peer into our programming then we may end up the cleverest rat, but that\u2019s hardly worth celebrating.<\/p>\n

Asking yourself what you want to want can help you avoid wanting the wrong things.<\/p>\n

It can also help with existential crises, disillusionment, and other crises of desire. The current culture has betrayed us in the way it programs our desires. It\u2019s exhausted many of us to the point where we\u2019re wary of wanting anything at all.<\/p>\n

Asking this question may give you the ability to desire again — to trust in yourself and your aims:<\/p>\n

What do you want to want?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To answer this question seriously we have to understand what it is and why it matters, so we\u2019ll start there.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll then look at two ways in which we can start ridding ourselves of society\u2019s default desires, and discover and shift to living out our own.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get into it.<\/p>\n

You Are What You Want<\/h3>\n

There\u2019s never been a time in human history where it was easy for someone to trade in their status quo wants for deliberately chosen desires, but we live in a period where this project is particularly difficult.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no single dominant, cohesive culture and there are endless options — a million different lifestyles and beliefs to try on and a never-ending buffet of things to want. There are a million advertisers and content creators competing for your attention, playing on your insecurities. It\u2019s a time of acute cross-pressures, and folks aren\u2019t sure which way to go.<\/p>\n

In such a period, people don\u2019t have the willpower to sort through the barrage of options, and they default to the kinds of things that please their biological cravings (food, sex), or the kinds of pursuits that have been desired by humanity for thousands of years (wealth, fame, power).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a dizzying time, but not a wholly unique one.<\/p>\n

The ancient Roman philosophy of Stoicism was born in a time of anomie<\/a>, or \u201cnormlessness,\u201d similar to ours. Their social structures were breaking down; the normal societal games used to divvy up honor and respect were broken.<\/p>\n

Carlin Barton puts it this way in Roman Honor<\/em><\/a>: \u201cWith the loss of the rules and conditions of the good contest, the entire language of honor \u2018imploded\u2019 and had to be \u2018reconstructed.\u2019\u201d Imagine the anxiety this would cause a society that was built completely around living for honor.<\/p>\n

The early Stoics had to go back to foundational principles to discover what truly mattered in life. They had to ask themselves the question we\u2019ll look at here:<\/p>\n

What do I want to want?<\/em><\/p>\n

Many of the stable arenas in which a Roman could formerly earn the respect of his peers had collapsed. Into this vacuum stepped the Stoic philosophers, who offered guidance on how to navigate their newly fragmented world.<\/p>\n

For this reason, these ancient philosophers are particularly helpful in illuminating what ails modernity and teaching us how to reconstruct a system in which we can thrive. For example, Seneca makes this observation about folks who didn\u2019t take charge of what they wanted in his time:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you ask one of them as he comes out of a house, \u2018Where are you going? What do you have in mind?\u2019 he will reply, \u2018I really don\u2019t know; but I\u2019ll see some people, I\u2019ll do something.\u2019 They wander around aimlessly looking for employment, and they do not what they intended but what they happen to run across. Their roaming is idle and pointless, like ants crawling over bushes, which purposelessly make their way right up to the topmost branch and then all the way down again. Many people live a life like these creatures, and you could not unjustly call it busy idleness.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds familiar, right? Such drifting may be as old as civilization itself, but we don\u2019t have to take part.<\/p>\n

In times of uncertainty and flexibility, like Seneca\u2019s and ours — when everything seems to be in chaos and nobody knows what\u2019s going to happen next — knowing what you want to want, and being able to reprogram your default desires, is both vitally important and uniquely possible.<\/p>\n

Why What You Want Matters<\/h3>\n

\u201cEvery chance of stimulation and distraction is welcome to [the mind] — even more welcome to all those inferior characters who actually enjoy being worn out by busy activity. There are certain bodily sores which welcome the hands that will hurt them, and long to be touched, and a foul itch loves to be scratched: in the same way I would say that those minds on which desires have broken out like horrid sores take delight in toil and aggravation<\/strong>.\u201d –Seneca, Tranquility of Mind<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Jack London and his wife were preparing to make a sea voyage in a small ship, their friends called them crazy. They didn\u2019t understand why London would willingly do something so difficult, so dangerous<\/em>. Yet for London, it was the \u201cpath of least resistance\u201d — it was as easy a decision for him as staying on land was for his friends. He reports on why he made the trip<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultimate word is I Like.<\/strong> It lies beneath philosophy, and is twined about the heart of life. When philosophy has maundered ponderously for a month, telling the individual what he must do, the individual says, in an instant, \u201cI Like,\u201d and does something else\u2026<\/p>\n

That is why I am building the [ship]. I am so made. I like, that is all.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His default desire was adventure, and so adventure was the obvious choice.<\/p>\n

Our desires define our own paths of least resistance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Psychologists have discovered that we all have limited willpower<\/a>. This means that if you\u2019re fighting uphill to do the right thing, you\u2019ll eventually lose.<\/p>\n

Your desires are like channels cut through the landscape of your life; water (your behavior) will automatically flow whichever way these arteries have been carved and directed.<\/p>\n

If you live life passively, these channels are made up of mindless, ingrained defaults formed by your biology and the pressures of society.<\/p>\n

The good news, however, is that these channels are not set in stone and can be deliberately altered; you can create new conduits of energy that flow in directions of your own choosing.<\/p>\n

Those who consider seriously what they want to want will be miles ahead of those who remain reactionary to media, ads, and their blindly-chosen peer groups.<\/p>\n

Putting in the work now to create your own defaults will pay massive dividends for the rest of your life.<\/p>\n

The Possibility of Reprograming Your Default Wants<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s not easy to move away from the default settings instilled by biology and culture in order to reprogram your wants. But it\u2019s not impossible either.<\/p>\n

The benefits of setting your own default desires have been recognized for millennia. Confucius considered this kind of reprogramming essential to realizing wu-wei — <\/em>action that comes naturally. Edward Slingerland explains the process of its attainment in Trying Not To Try<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the early stages of training, an aspiring Confucian gentleman<\/a> needs to memorize entire shelves of archaic texts, learn the precise angle at which to bow, and learn the lengths of the steps with which he is to enter a room. His sitting mat must always be perfectly straight. All of this rigor and restraint, however, is ultimately aimed at producing a cultivated, but nonetheless genuine, form of spontaneity<\/strong>. Indeed, the process of training is not considered complete until the individual has passed completely beyond the need for thought or effort.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, through deliberate training that at first feels tedious, we eventually arrive at a point where we want what we want to want<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Reprogramming your default wants (habitual desires) and achieving wu-wei<\/em> can take a lifetime. Confucius measured his progress not in days, weeks, or even years, but in decades:<\/p>\n

\u201cAt fifteen I set my mind upon learning, at thirty I took my place in society; at forty I became free of doubts; at fifty I understood Heaven\u2019s Mandate; at sixty my ear was attuned; and at seventy I could follow my heart\u2019s desires without transgressing the bounds of propriety.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We probably will never reach the ultimate point that Confucius describes (only partially because we may find it impossible to determine the perfect thing to want to want!) but are guaranteed to make progress if we work at it.<\/p>\n

How to Discover What You Want and Actually Want It<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cWe do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are — that is the fact.” –Jean-Paul Sartre<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I consider my life honestly, I see that it is governed by a certain very small number of patterns of events which I take part in over and over again.\u201d –Christopher Alexander, architect<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Once you understand that you are what you want, and that you can reprogram your wants, then the task is to discover what you want to want in life, and how to want what you want. You can do that by 1) experimentation and seeking direct experience, and 2) surrounding yourself with those who want the same things.<\/p>\n

Direct Experience: Seeing Things as They Are<\/h3>\n

\u201cWe suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in place of reality. <\/strong>And all the while, reality — the kind of reality at Lincoln\u2019s address, that slow unfolding of everyday life — goes on behind the scenes, largely unnoticed. As we scream at the flashing digits, wave at the man in the cape, and devour every entertaining snippet that news hounds throw up, life passes on by.\u201d –New Philosopher issue #10, Famous for $15<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not industry that makes men restless, but false impressions of things drive them mad.\u201d –Seneca, Tranquility of Mind<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When we want the wrong thing it\u2019s usually because of a distortion or abstraction. When we can\u2019t see clearly we can\u2019t want clearly.<\/p>\n

One of the best ways to consistently know what you want to want is to pay attention to your direct experience. That means being present with what is actually going on.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no better way to do this than experiment.<\/p>\n

Poke and Prod<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAll life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.\u201d –Ralph Waldo Emerson<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Studies on happiness have shown that our immensely useful ability to imagine the future is just about useless in helping us determine what will make us happy.<\/p>\n

Because our imagination is so great at so many things, we rely on it even in situations where it\u2019s useless. The best trick I\u2019ve found to counter this is to develop a bias toward action.<\/p>\n

A bias for action<\/a> is the best way to ensure that we stay connected to reality; which is, in turn, our best defense against wants we don\u2019t want to want.<\/p>\n

Instead of spending our lives imagining what things might be like, we\u2019re often better off trying them out and seeing.<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s changing careers, adopting a new mindset, or anything else, it\u2019s possible for us to try the decision on and test it for ourselves.<\/p>\n

We can set up experiments to see how we actually like each of them.<\/p>\n

If we do this consistently we will move reliably toward the wants we want to want.<\/p>\n

For instance, we might be convinced that we need to become an actor after seeing a movie. It\u2019s not until we start the process of taking acting lessons and going to auditions that we can actually know whether we like acting. The repetition of scenes, constant rejection, and emotional labor can only be understood with direct experience.<\/p>\n

Direct experience will help us refocus on life’s proper path. The glittering path may look better at first, but as we begin to walk it we begin to see the hidden costs: the shallow friendships, the enemies made, the underappreciated role of luck, and all of the other little details hidden from view.<\/p>\n

The more vigilant we are about this the more our desires will flow from our experience instead of outside influences. The more we pay attention to our experience the more soundly we can determine what we want to want.<\/p>\n

This is because focusing on our direct experience strips our lives of drama, which lives in abstractions. The need to appear a hero or a master of the universe dissipates when you focus on the work at hand.<\/p>\n

Antoine de Saint-Exupery memorializes a friend, Guillaumet, who became famous for courage in many life-threatening adventures:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were to talk to him about his courage, Guillaumet would shrug his shoulders. But it would be just as false to extol his modesty. His place is far beyond that mediocre virtue.<\/p>\n

If he shrugs his shoulders, it is because he is no fool. He knows that once men are caught up in an event they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes known.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A commitment to experiments and gaining direct experience is a commitment to facing the unknown. It\u2019s a commitment to defanging the terrors of our imagination. Our salvation is likely not in replaying the scenario one more time, but in taking a step forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.” –Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand and Stars<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Internal Scorecards<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe big question about how people behave is whether they\u2019ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.<\/p>\n

I always pose it this way, I say: ‘Lookit. Would you rather be the world\u2019s greatest lover, but have everyone think you\u2019re the world\u2019s worst lover? Or would you rather be the world\u2019s worst lover but have everyone think you\u2019re the world\u2019s greatest lover?’<\/strong> . . . Now my dad: He was a hundred percent Inner Scorecard guy. He was really a maverick. But he wasn\u2019t a maverick for the sake of being a maverick. He just didn\u2019t care what other people thought.\u201d –Warren Buffett<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If we take our eyes off what we want to want for an instant, advertisers and others will take command of our desires. This is why it\u2019s imperative that we stay focused on what we\u2019re trying to achieve with these experiments.<\/p>\n

We need a way to measure ourselves so that others can\u2019t dictate our worth.<\/p>\n

Imagine a marathon runner and a sprinter side by side. The guy running the marathon will be absolutely humiliated if he thinks they\u2019re in the same race. The sprinter\u2019s ego will likely be blown up. Both will probably change their current pace and mess up their times.<\/p>\n

This is what can happen to us if we start using the wrong scorecards. We see someone who has achieved so much more than us. We forget that they\u2019ve been working at it for 10 years, or we\u2019re blind to the sacrifices they\u2019ve made in their personal lives.<\/p>\n

Inner scorecards allow us to respect our direct experience by making our aims front and center to us, not detached and floating around culture in ads and TV shows.<\/p>\n

Cycling between experiments and internal scorecards helps quiet those outside voices and develops our respect for our experience. We learn to trust in our reality over the cries of conmen and the fearful mob. We can gain the ability to stay the course when proper, and to change routes when needed.<\/p>\n

This is all about returning our perspective of experience to something closer to home. Ultimately, we want to judge ourselves by the actions we take over the outcomes they lead to.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at possible experiments you might run in your own life:<\/p>\n

Some Tactics<\/strong><\/p>\n