Desire is funny.
“Getting” and “having” are closely related to desire. Desire, typically, is the desire to “get” something, to move from the state of not having something to the state of having it. We can spend enormous amounts of time and energy in the space between “getting” and “having,” thinking, obsessing, planning, plotting – how will you get that job you want, that object you crave, that experience you desire? And then, then, the desire comes to fruition: we get the job, the object, the experience.
But what follows the “getting”? Do you spend as much time, as much energy, as much thought actually enjoying what you wanted? Does the satisfaction of your desire bring you the joy you imagined it would? Is the satisfaction of desire itself a happy experience? Or is it bittersweet? Is anticipation – the state of not having what you want, but imagining what it would be to have it – a bigger part of the experience of desire than you imagined?
