On not writing

I haven’t been writing much. I haven’t been having sex much. All my energy has been going into some combination of work, writing elsewhere, unhelpful political reading and podcast-listening, and vaguely helpful escapist reading (The Plot Against America, haunting, prescient).

My cock has been neglected. have been neglecting my cock. I haven’t been masturbating, haven’t been having much sex.

There are all sorts of reasons – physical pain, political pain, the pressures of life. I was talking the other night with a friend, wondering about how much of it is, just, well, age.

I don’t know. I don’t, honestly, care.

What I care about is this: my cock has that aching hungry feeling right now. It’s non-specific. And it’s not, exactly, horny. It’s more like… hungry to be horny.

Because reasons, I found myself reading, recently, about the phenomenon of desire. I didn’t like any of the definitions I came across. Here’s Merriam Webster’s first definition of the verb form:

1:  to long or hope for :  exhibit or feel desire for desire success knew that men still desired her.

And here’s their first definition of the noun form (recursively present in the verb definition):

1:  conscious impulse (see 2impulse 3) toward something that promises enjoyment or satisfaction in its attainment ridding oneself of all desires how humans process desire.

The second definition of the noun form is “longing, craving.” This starts to feel more helpful.

Desire isn’t a positive thing, an active thing. “Want,” it feels to me, is a richer word, meaning both “to long for” and “to lack.” It has, embedded within, the impossibility of its fulfillment: if I want something, I can’t have it; if I have something, I don’t want it.

“Desire” and “want” feature lack as an essential element. All those “keep it new” advice columns for married couples gesture toward this reality: for “want” to be powerful, there must be lack.

I think the Stones got it ever-so-slightly wrong: you can’t ever get what you want.

And right now, I’m feeling me some need. 😉

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