What whispers beneath the surface when desire speaks its name? I notice how one small word — “want” — carries worlds of difference within its borders. Sometimes, it feels like explaining trails I’ve already walked, as if desire follows rather than leads.

Is this backward storytelling? A narrator who arrives after the journey’s begun?

Other desires float like objects on water—light, unburdened by struggle. A preference that asks little promises little, a gentle leaning toward rather than away. But can the same word hold my weightless inclination and the heavy anchors of more profound yearning?

Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home.

Then there are those measured longings with numbers and specific moments attached. Something shifts in this wanting—time stretches forward; imagination constructs futures not yet born.

What action transforms vague wishes into plotted plans? And is it still the same element at heart?

More mysterious are those desires that point not toward having but being. No finish line marks their completion; no object satisfies their call. They shape my path itself rather than waiting at the journey’s end.

How strange that the same word encompasses both reaching for objects and becoming qualities. Both acquisition and transformation.

Strangest of all are those contradictory wants—the ones wrapped in reluctance. Desiring what I dread, wanting what I wish to avoid. Am I longing for the thing itself or merely its absence? The space it leaves when finally complete?

How do these different currents of desire meet and merge within one heart? The immediate impulse crashes against the distant goal. The simple preference dissolves into a deeper purpose. Each claiming to speak with the same voice moves me in different directions.

Perhaps wanting isn’t one thread but many—some spun from habit, some from hunger, some from hope, some from fear. Each requires different attention and a different response.

Take a look at yourself, and then make a change!

The backward-looking want might need simple awareness—seeing how the story constructs itself after action has already taken place. The preference-want might need neither resistance nor indulgence but simple acknowledgment.

Goal-wants might need structure, scaffolding, and stepping stones across time. Being-wants might need cultivation, practice, and remembrance. Obligation-wants might need compassion for the part of me that resists what another part demands. But are all requests and impulses equal?

Everyone might know these different colored threads of wanting, these various currents that flow in parallel. Everyone might feel confused when one type masquerades as another or pulls in opposite directions, each claiming to be the authentic voice of desire. But if I know what’s up, I surely know what I want.

You are always welcome.