Something is missing in my life. I don’t know what it is, but I am tormented by various theories. The bleakest (and perhaps most likely) is that our brains are wired for dissatisfaction as a means of survival so that we will keep hunting, keep inventing, keep competing lest we die from the threats that come with stagnation. This is bleak because there’s no way out. Evolution has selected gnawing dissatisfaction as a useful tool for securing food, safety, shelter, status—scarce yet vital resources for our primitive ancestors. In the western world, we live in abundance. We want for very little. And yet we still want. We can’t stop ourselves from wanting.
At least, I can’t.
I am somewhat cursed. I believe that whoever set up the circuits in my brain put dissatisfaction on overdrive but failed to counter it with an equally robust sense of self and work ethic. I want so much, but I don’t want to work too hard to get it.
I also think too much.
My mind is a little broken, so I’ve been relying more heavily on my soul these past few years. The soul is much kinder. It’s the failsafe that someone put in there to rescue us from ourselves when we can’t stop wanting. With a soul, we can unlock the shackles of desire. We can transcend the versions of ourselves that are tied to checkpoints and identities. We can be free by going within. That’s the theory anyway. The Buddha teaches this. Many great and wise teachers have. Some might say they have all taught this in one way or another. Being a Christian, I’m quite fond of what Jesus had to say about this (which is a lot). This is one of my favorites, which provides a bit of foreshadowing of where I’m going with this:
"Nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."
— Luke 17:21
The kingdom of God, everything you need, is within you. For you have a soul. But I’m not in a soul space today. I’m in the trenches of my wants. I am so firmly rooted in the material muck of this earth, I think that I may have accidentally snuffed out the pilot light of my soul. I need a light.
What sets your soul on fire with a blaze so spectacular that it outshines your most dazzling wants?
I’ve tried getting quiet. I’ve tried retreating. I’ve tried being in nature. I’ve tried meditation and prayer. These are all fine and wonderful practices, but something is still missing, dammit. Something continues to be missing.
And here we get to the paradox. Writing sets my soul on fire. Art. Music. Theatre. Poetry. But especially words and a blank page and my brain. Writing. I love it. And I have been doing it! Don’t get me wrong. I’ve written another book since I retreated from social media a year ago. It’s wonderful. But something is missing. It has taken me months to figure out what it is, but by Jove I think I’ve got it.
You, dear reader. You have been missing.
Tell me you’re an elder millennial without telling me you’re an elder millennial by saying you used to have a blog. Well, I did. I wrote constantly on Running to Tahiti and I developed a warm and wonderful audience of readers. You gave me feedback, you encouraged me. You set my soul on fire.
I wrote things that moved people. Not every time, not even most of the time, but occasionally I put words to a feeling that made someone else feel seen. I made one or two people feel a little less alone when their pet died or as they struggled with body image. Or if they just needed some advice on which running shoes to buy.
I don’t know if this is about the power of status or the power of sharing; maybe the two are inextricably linked. Last year I read a wonderful and kind of depressing book called The Status Game. The entire book is a much more articulate deep dive into this very topic—that our brains are wired to acquire status and no matter what we do, we cannot escape it. The book is more fatalistic about this than I am willing to be, but I won’t discount the possibility that we can’t escape our own programming. That we’re in this game whether we like it or not.
But maybe we can use it.
We want to be useful. We hope to be helpful. Yes, this curries favor and convinces our brain that we have successfully increased our chances of survival. Yay! Here’s some dopamine! Good brain, good little brain. Go invent something else.
But can’t this also be evidence of our soul’s desire to make the world a better place? Evidence of how capable we are of loving our neighbors by wanting to connect with them? Isn’t the desire to be loved a thing with feathers singing a song about how, no matter what, we can love.
I am someone who enjoys documenting and reflecting on my life as it happens to me, and I enjoy sharing that effort. I am compelled to do so. Turns out I want to be seen, too. I am human. Such a drag.
So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get back to the good work of making art and sharing it. We’re going to write every day and we’re going to start a new blog. Except we’re not going to call it a blog anymore because we are going to appeal to the cool people and so we are going to call this a Substack. I’m sure next year there will be some new shiny platform that will move to the front of line, pushing Substack to the realm of Medium, tumblr, WordPress, blogger, and back it back it goes all the way to LiveJournal. But fine, we’ll call it a Substack. (It’s all just blogs, people.)
I’m going to write about my gnawing dissatisfaction with life. And I’ll write about the satisfying bits too. The motherhood bits. The love bits. The soul bits. I am going to write about the guitar-learning, soul-seeking, word-smithing, road-running, tree-hugging, ocean-loving person that I have become and am becoming. And also about the person who wants a house and a book deal and more kids and a dog and more time. The wanting comes in waves, to quote one of my favorite bands. We’ll write about bands too, by the way. Lots of bands.
I’m never going to find it, the thing that’s missing. I’m going to end up at home like Dorothy, like Frodo, like Alice. It’s funny to know that in the middle of the quest—that the ending is the beginning. The path that leads to the center of the Labyrynth is right in front of our eyes, but it would be a very boring story if we went that way. I may already have what I’m searching for, but it is locked away in a part of myself that I can never fully access because of how I am designed. Oh, and there are misleading instructions on the lock saying “seek riches elsewhere.” Jesus has a parable about this. I love it.
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."
— Matthew 13:44
I’m going to write a whole post about this parable actually, but for now, I think it parallels what I’m getting at with the unreachable treasure. We think we have to buy the field, and maybe we do. Maybe we’ll always feel the need to deal in currency to get where we want to go, and maybe never getting there reminds us that transcendence is a journey, not a destination. Cruel, really, but also brilliant. Because look at what the trick makes us do, us silly humans. We create. We make art and communities and people! We make people! Wanting also makes us do horrible things. War. Treachery. Deportation. Violence. Unspeakable cruelty. All questing for power. But remember that both red and blue light sabers are made from the same kyber crystal. In the right hands, with the soul as co-pilot, look at what wanting can do.
Berthe Morisot, Bergère couchée
Georgia O’Keeffe, Red Poppy
Edward Hopper, Automat