Damek.

Desire is a very charged issue - longing, yearning - there’s a belief that desire leads to more feelings of dissatisfaction, disappointment. I love what Buddhism et al. can teach us, but…

We’ve had an eastern philosophy overdose. It takes a whole lot more courage to be attached to what you really want and who you really love than it does to be detached.

Hunger tells us what we need, and hunger is an amazing, life-giving, driving force.

The problem is that hunger, when it’s not satisfied, often becomes addiction — not to what we are hungry for, but to the ways we try to medicate the pain of not having it.

Look at what you really want — what do you go to bed missing, what do you wake up hungry for. Find your wish and accept the challenge of trying to create it in your world. A lot of other problems will go away on their own.

Use your hunger as a guide and driving force, not an end goal you attach your self-worth to. Whatever the past holds, or your future, whatever you hate yourself for, let it go. It’s the hardest thing in the world, but…

Forgive yourself. Deep down, not just surface stuff. Forgive yourself for not knowing your future. Forgive yourself for being so arrogant as to think you should know the future.

Then, take a deep breath, and move forward with your deepest hunger as a guide.

[plagiarism notice: synthesized mostly word-for-word from a random podcast snippet and livejournal comment]