The Paradox of Wanting

If you would like to make a person unhappy, do not give him what he wants. If you would like to make a person miserable, give him only what he wants. What a horrible fate to harbor such a fickle mechanism in your core like the human does his heart! A person usually needs some of what he wants. A person usually does not want most what he needs most. Allow me to explain.

***

Imagine a man who wants to do something—really do something—with himself. (It is not so difficult to imagine. We are all forced to do as much.) This man wants to be good. (Who would want to be otherwise?) Ah, but he cannot keep all of the good in his mind's eye! He can only envision a fragment of it. When he thinks of being good (and he does not necessarily think of it as “good” but only what he wants and approves of), he thinks of being held in high-esteem. He wants to be admired and respected for doing something the people who know him (or simply know of him) think is significant or good. He wants this for himself more than anything else. It could be fairly called his one fundamental want. It is his goal. It frees him from anxiety because, any time he falls, he can look up and see significance on the horizon. 'Yes' to food, shelter, clothing, and the rest, but what he really wants is significance. He thinks he is up to the task.

Let us give him gifts. Let us assume he has a knack for speaking and an abundance of charisma. He will try and try to make himself significant through enthusiastic performances. He will apply himself and jockey for position. He will leap through more and higher hoops than his peers. He will try to affect change through nimble suggestion-making in one context and through blustery assertions in another. He tries to climb the ranks and is poised to be what people above him need.

Add one more thing. Give his peers deaf ears so that every time he speaks they hear only white noise. Then, you will not give him what he wants. If you make his talents impotent, you will make him unhappy. He has never been certain what significance is, but he knows he has not achieved it. If he is a strong man, full of the volatile mixture of conviction and arrogance, he may try and try again. He may alter his wardrobe, enroll in new studies, write ingratiating letters, and dole out favors with strings attached. Still, no one hears him. When he has grown sore from tension and tired from expectation—when he realizes his time is passed—he will be unshakably unhappy. Thereafter, he can think of nothing else but how the one thing he asked for (and strived to get) was denied him.

Our man has become unhappy in a definitive way when he does not get what he wants. This is what it is to be broken: to be unable to get what you want. He retains all of his abilities, but they cannot get him what he wants. He knows what he can do, but that means nothing to him without his deeds being efficacious. Attach a loving woman to his arm and a friendly neighbor next door, and he still will not be happy. Stick him in a web of caring family members, and he will not be whisked out of his unhappiness. In his senescence  he may forget what exactly it was that he wanted, but he is never far from his disappointment. The man who does not get what he wants (even though what he wants is limited) is unhappy.

***

What of the man, though, who gets what he wants and is still unhappy? Let us, for the sake of discussion, imagine the same man again. Let us say he again wants significance (although that is but one example and could be any other object of ultimate desire). Instead of withholding significance from him, give it to him in droves. Give him the same uncanny intuition but add unblemished success. Sit him down in a high backed leather chair and fine clothes. Hang an admirable title beneath his name. Stuff him full of accolades and adorn his walls with flattering articles. He will be happy until you give him one more little thing. Give him a little time (which adds nothing new, per se, but simply more of the same). Keep giving him what he has and nothing more. Give him time and that chair will surely cause a crick in his neck and his voice will be muted with unhappiness.

I imagine the man who climbed Everest must have been filled with joy upon finally reaching the summit. Icy tears must have frozen to his cheeks at the sublime view. He surely swelled with ecstasy at the magnificent summation of all his struggling. His legs likely collapsed in appreciation to the pinnacle of that great rock now giving him rest. He has what he wanted and, for a moment, he is happy. But the celebration can rightfully last so long. Within a short time, he was looking below the horizon. He was thinking about his descent. He was surveying the impending travails and plotting the best return course.

If out of beneficence you told him he could stay, you would not help him. If you arranged for food and drink to be regularly delivered to the peak, if you planned to fly his wife and children to the pinnacle, if you hired a journalist and photographer to document him and further his fame, if you were to erect a thoroughly insulated home that could keep he and his family warm, if you made it possible for him to live a long life on the spot of his greatest accomplishment, you would only make him miserably unhappy. A person cannot bask in the warmth of his achievements forever because time cools all waters. A person cannot rest when he gets what he wants, because he needs more than he is want to want.

***

Desires have their roots in needs. We need most to persist. Before we need anything else, we need to continue existing in order to have our other needs fulfilled. Being can only be nourished by being. Food, drink, and air are all existent beings that supplement the being we are. It follows, although it is not often heeded, that what we need most is what exists most: goodness (to do), truth (to think), and beauty (to perceive). Their satiating power far exceeds the abundant but comparatively paltry fodder of pleasure, entertainment, and lust.

We are not so inept and ignorant as to be totally clueless about what we require to persist. We have inklings and half-cooked notions about how best to go about persisting. We need something to think, something to do, and something to perceive in order to persist. We can identify some parts of what we need. Thus, we want some of what we need. The desire is incomplete, though, because we need so much in order to unceasingly persist. How could we not leave something off the list?

What is on our live's lists is what people deems themselves capable of acquiring. Everyone has strengths. Everyone will stay within the confines of those strengths in order to live most confidently and comfortably. Moreover, they are means of differentiating ourselves. A person recognizes a need to hunt if he is a superior marksman. A person recognizes a need to relate to others if she is compassionate. There is something laudable about concentrating on one part of life's possibilities: we become experts within that realm. The desire to exercise one’s expertise corresponds with the need to excel. But this need is but one of many and is not even the greatest. Beware: the magnifying glass enlarges the miniature, but we should not allow ourselves to forget there is much more beyond the scope of the lens. One falls off a cliff following a trail with it.

A person is unhappy not getting and getting what he wants because he is short-sighted. The problem with short-sightedness is you are never seeing as much as you need (even when you are seeing as much as you can). What a person is good at doing is not tautological with what is good for a person to do. The same applies to what a person thinks and perceives: penchants, strengths, gifts, skills, talents, predilections, dispositions, and preferences all narrow a field that is much, much wider. They make it possible for us to chart a course. Dispositions contain pre-fabricated destinations. They give us direction. We want what they tell us to want and they motivate us to pursue those ends. But as any runner will tell you, it is good to stretch. It is good to be expanded beyond your comforts. We are more than what we do and especially more than what we do well.

A person is unhappy not getting and getting what he wants because he is self-reliant. The problem with self-reliance is you are never replenishing as much as you devour (even when you are devouring yourself). What a person possesses is not tautological with a person’s identity. A person is not a closed-system. We are in a state of dependence and should not presume otherwise. We have more than ourselves and should be grateful.

***

There is an image that is helpful to understanding our situation. Tie a carrot to the end of a stick and dangle it before of a draught animal. If it is hungry, you will get it to walk lengthy distances provided the stick is the right length. If the stick is too short, the animal will shake its head to be rid of the nuisance. If the stick is too long, the animal will never take an interest. The goal needs to be attainable (but not readily so) in order to persuade it to do what you want.

The animal does not consider the potency of the carrot but thinks only about eating it. The food is right before its eyes, so the animal needs not scavenge. It needs only to pursue. In the end, it expends greater energy pursuing its food than if it would have settled for the nearby fields.

If the animal could ever sink its teeth into the object of its desire, it would quickly devour the snack. If it eats the carrot, its hunger would return shortly after consumption. The goal is insufficient. The animal would meander around in search of more to eat and forget all about the carrot.

Animals chasing after carrots are analogous as us. We set goals that take time, but not too much time. We want to feel ourselves making progress. The person who is unhappy not getting what he wants fails to realize what surrounds him. He is like the animal that chases after the carrot in front of it despite the green grass at its feet. The person who is unhappy getting what he wants is like the animal that eats the carrot. He overestimated the value of what he pursued.

A Portrait of Loneliness

(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)

An icy wind whistled in Josh’s ears. He pulled his newsboy hat lower and raised his shoulders. The streets through which he roamed look deserted. Milky steam plumed from a sewer lid and slinked across the road until it dispersed. Josh paused at an intersection to let a car pass. Once it rattled by, Josh resumed his course in defiance of the glowing orange hand that advised him otherwise.

The smell of vegetable oil and rice vinegar reminded Josh of his happier past. Walking among the downtown buildings, he caught a waft of such a scent while passing a bustling buffet. He slid into a stream of wistful recollections.

Josh became attuned to the scent of Chinese food during his first taste of independence. Bolstered by the new found freedom resultant from passed driving exams and hindered by poorly paying summer jobs, Josh and his friends sought inexpensive means to wade into maturity. It was preferable to leave their respective homes with their ever-cramping restrictions, yet it was impossible to take shelter in a local tavern. Senior year of high school was a time of conversations fueled by the excitement of youth rather than the intoxicants of adulthood.

Restaurants were a fitting locale for adolescent escapades. They were the sort of places you could laugh and carry on like adults without the bank accounts that come with careers. The blissfully nondescript Hunan Inn was the sort of place you could order something like the House Special and not think twice about price. Nestled between an anemic insurance office and a vacant store front, the mustard yellow neon sign for the Hunan Inn gleamed with the promise of quantity over quality.

Hunan Inn was distinct for its changelessness. Even its wounds of dilapidation remained the same. Dining was like eating in a forgotten museum. On the table at the booth in the southeast corner rested an archaic, small black-and-white television with an antenna cloaked in silver foil. Every surface was frosted with grey powder. Dust accumulated on ancient wisps of spider web to form forlorn bridges from a plastic framed silhouette of the Buddha on the wall to a lonely bouquet of fake flowers or to the pepper shaker near the soy sauce bottle. Rips in the russet vinyl booth cushions were healed with duct tape the color of chocolate. The liquids in the rainbow of liquor bottles never descended. It was as though the restaurant aged to a point and thereafter could not be touched by time.

What would have otherwise been a depressing environment was redeemed by the meek elderly couple who were its proprietors. "Grandpa," as Josh’s friends referred to him, cooked exclusively. He never made extended forays into the dining room. Instead, he kept near the back and grinned from a distance whenever he felt eyes upon him. The slight woman and presumed wife of Grandpa was the face of the establishment. She sported a heather grey ponytail and bright red apron that fell slightly above the knees. She served the food, cleaned up, and irregularly showered you with stale-but-sweet almond cookies as you left. Although it was a transparent attempt to make use out of expired goods, the treats nevertheless were a relished surprise.

Most endearing about the locale was the fact that on nearly all visits, the friends were the only customers. This gave the group two obvious benefits: greater license to be boisterous and an illusion the restaurant was their own private dining room, the sort of thing business executives had access to. They were kings of a small hill, but kings all the same.

Opening the door to Hunan Inn jingled a bell on a tattered piece of yarn and roused the staff to attention. Departing from the vestibule coincided with the tail of white knotted strings of Grandpa’s apron darting into the kitchen. The woman greeted the young man by counting them and stating “four” in a declarative rather than inquisitive tone. Although all the tables were available, the woman always sat the group at the same one. It was not near a window or in a corner, yet it seemed to them like the seating for very important persons. She took everyone’s orders with squinty smiles and nods.

Josh never failed to feel full after a meal at the Hunan Inn. There was plenty of food. More steamed rice and lo mein noodles were provided without charge in the rare instance that a voracious appetite outlasted the dinner portions. More than food, Josh felt filled by human connection. He and his friends would pile outrageous tale on top of outrageous tale in a comedic competition. Late-night escapades, close-calls with authority figures, female conquests (or impending conquests), and intricate plans of tomfoolery buttressed the remaining edifice of conversation they built. The friends left listening would chuckle and rattle the teapot with ecstatic slaps of mirth. Cynicism, hypocrisy, and spite fueled many of the jokes and wise-cracks, but the conclusion was always laughter. Whether the humor was good-natured or dark never mattered as much as actively sharing with one another. Rarely did any of the participants feel like they knew anyone else better, but they were unquestionably closer every time they left.

A raised slab of concrete tripped him out of his memories. Josh stumbled and felt embarrassed at his excessively awkward corrective motions. He stayed vertical at the cost of snickers from two passing women carrying large soft-drinks. He blushed and cast his eyes in a direction that would have kept him tripping again. He wished he had someone to laugh with.

Josh wondered why it was he always found himself depressed whenever he took the time to wonder. Then he thought of his isolation and how dreadfully unknown he was. It is not good for man to be alone. During the crucible of college, he grew disdainful of shallow interactions. He did not have the time to engage in conventional dialogues concerning what he was going to “do” with his degree. After college was over and he was fully independent (i.e., isolated), he found shallowness preferable to the loneliness.

Where did my friends go? Different towns. Different dreams. Everything goes to shit. Entropy. This is not what I expected. What happened? Why don’t we at least write a note to each other every now-and-again? Technology makes us brittle. We're so damned distractible--all these shiny, beeping gadgets shining and beeping every other second. I wish it was quieter. I wish I could go to bed thinking I talked with someone today. They never really cared. Or did they just stop? Transitioned to something else.

Crossing a plate-glass front of a café, Josh eyed the crowd. People were sporadically positioned along the lengthy counter behind the window. A man in a hooded sweatshirt and a denim jacket took a bite of a half-eaten hoagie. The bottom contents fell out in a slimy plop. The man pinched the fallen ingredients together between his fingers and tilted his head back. Josh looked forward before he could watch the man release them into his full mouth.

I want to have friends. I don't have friends. I am sad. I used to have friends. I don't have friends. I am sad. Repeat. Refrain. Encore! Encore! Sadness is a rhythm and depression is its waltz. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, want, 2, 3, miss, 2, 3, sad, 2, 3. We travel the same steps of thought to the beat of the old wheezy throbs of our hearts. We twist and turn, spin and sway, to the same notes that resonate for the same amounts of time.

Acrid saliva seeped into the back of Josh’s mouth. He felt nauseous. He fixed himself the only way he knew how: he gave himself something else to be conscious of. He unbuttoned the front of his jacket and let the air chill he core. His organs shuddered. Humans weren’t supposed to live here. It’s too damn cold.

Vital Signs: Conclusion

Ease and Effort

We have run many tests. Our findings are generally discouraging. Being full of dismay and despair or being empty of concern all make entertainment appealing. Entertainment takes your time and money and gives you rest. There are a great many things of which to be conscious. Entertainment often pushes out the more demanding, more unpleasant (and yet ultimately beneficial) possibilities. It is easier to be bored than to be imaginative. It is easier to be distracted than to be anxious. It is easier to be despairing than to be hopeful. It is easier to be tired than to be active. Entertainment subsidizes these weaknesses.

Giving in to our desire for ease is not always good for us! At times, we undermine our own interests this way. A person suffering from the onset of hypothermia supposes he will warm up if only he would lie down. He curls up in the snow and first feels relieved (Yes, this is better. The wind cannot chap me here.), then numb (I do not feel cold; I must be comfortable.), then nothing at all. In this instance, listening to our desires has a deadly consequence. The outcome of our love of entertainment is not deadly, but it is certainly dire.

I anticipate as we draw our examination to a close, you may be tempted to seek a second opinion. You may disagree with my approach and may be critical of my findings. It seems I have a bias towards personal expenditure. The imagination takes effort. Self-reflection takes effort. Preservation requires effort. Surrender is effortless and I belittled it. It would seem I am generally prescribing a regime of exercise.

"What is laudable about effort?" you wonder. "Is not effortlessness the sign of grace? Peace and repose, to be unsettled--are these not goals in everyone's heart? You make it seem despicable to rest. But where you see an idler, I see a victor—one who has earned repose through winning the daily battle of endurance."

My critic, you make a good point. Peace and rest are our homes, where we long to return to after embarking into the world. You make a good point about needing rest, but has your victor earned absolute rest? To be contented with a full stomach and empty head: is this the peace you seek? I ask you: is the daily battle of endurance people wage with the world the only battle they are involved in? Does not belligerence describe a great many of the relationships a person has, not on a specific day to day basis, but viewed minute by minute and year by year? Opposition is everywhere. We war with our world, our peers, and ourselves. Life contains struggles for more than bodily continuance. There are other conflicts in which we are engaged. Why, after winning the battle for bodily sustenance, do you refuse to fight for the rest of today?

Toiling is essential to life. It defines our adult day-to-day existence. Work is a process of emptying ourselves in order to be filled again--filled with food, clothing, and shelter. But is that all we are working for? Are those the only cavities created by living? Does not this frustrating world, these frustrating contemporaries, and our frustrating selves leech us daily of more than just our blood and sweat? Do not intangible substances seep out of us as well? Do we not drip hopes and dreams, ideals and aspirations? What are we putting in their place? Is the trade a fair one? Are we getting something in return worth as much as our limited time and lessening bodies?

I grant exertion appears unseemly. Many long for the white rather than the blue collar. "Labor is so beastly. Oxen must push and plod. Are we to lower ourselves to the level of oxen? No. If we can earn the fruits of toil without struggling, then we will. If we can consume the fruits of toil in leisure and repose, then we will. Life will be devoid of strife altogether and will, therefore, be completely noble," the critic observes.

My critic makes another good point. Clean fingers present nicely. I must inquire though: is a drain noble? I know it sounds absurd, but I am not jesting. You look at the ox and find offense. Must you not look at the drain and find inspiration? It takes and takes and takes without any effort at all. It is more automatic than automatic. There are no moving parts. It need only be still and wait for others to pour into it. It does its job by doing nothing. It does nothing, tries nothing, and wills nothing--it only receives. Is this object not your idol? Is this not the god of your freedom, that which does nothing but exists to be served, to having everything done to it?

Please consider this: if we know our lives here are coming to an end, should not we want to make the best of them? Can we honestly tell ourselves on our last day we have made the best of our lives when we spent them one third in rest, one third in doing something we must to live the next day, and one third in doing nothing at all--in having something done to you by entertainers and their bankrollers? Is this the reward you seek for your labor: the liberty to be amused? Your individuality is born out of the distinct uniqueness of your experience. In freedom, you seek experience and shape yourself. Judging from what you seek, you want to make yourself nothing more than a vessel for the tepid pleasure of being entertained. How does that sit with you? Does it churn your stomach as it does mine?

I submit to you that we desperately need to imagine! I submit to you that we desperately need to act for ourselves and know what and who we are! Do these duties for yourself in a way that does not neglect others. Do these duties for others in a way that does not neglect yourself. Thereby, you will guarantee your commitment to communion with them. To give to yourself without concern for others is a subtle suicide. To give to others without concern for yourself is a misguided martyrdom. One can only rightly empty oneself, to will to become nothing, for that which is everything. No human or grouping of humans can ever be everything for another human. At most, he, she, or they can only be everything worthwhile for another, not what can be of utmost worth for all. The distance between the two cannot be traversed.

Wealth and entertainment are to be consumed. In a culture that primarily defines its constituents as consumers, is it surprising there is so little to be said in favor of giving and creating? Could there be a better treatment for this disease around us than to try to construct something that neither seeks profits nor keeps others from acting? Construction is difficult, but it is fulfilling.

I have no issue with a movement towards the external. I am not suggesting the self is a bottomless wellspring of originality and purpose. To look outside of oneself is at times needful, at times delusional, and at times salvational. The problem is with the intention behind this outward-seeking. Boredom, lethargy, and anxiety are organic consequences of being human. Entertainment seeks to relieve us from kinds of suffering, but suffering is often needed. It is dangerous for people to be numb. Without pain, they do not understand the consequences of their actions and the truth of their being. Pain is a communication about bodily conditions that are more worthwhile than the cessation of pain is. The same is true of interior suffering. If it is educational, it can be empowering. Suffering can inspire a person to become more human, to be more of what she is and identify less with what she is not.

My questions are harsh, but perhaps they do not apply to you. I do not intend to be cruel or unsympathetic. I do not deny for a moment that all people who dare to exert themselves need to rest—even regularly. Rest is earned. But you who have not tried to exert yourself, why do I always find you napping? "I am exhausted," you say. You do not know the half of it! Lack of activity can make one tired just as activity will. A paraplegic, if he miraculously could feel his legs again, would know them to be tired. Is it not the same with you? Is not your exhaustion from inactivity rather than activity? Does not atrophy describe your condition? When have you last taken your death seriously and, as a result, truly tried to live for something serious or die to something worthless? Day after day you are closer to the end. Would it frighten you more if I told you that you are daily closer to being forgotten by the world? Still, you who have not worked are taking a vacation. What a perilous existence!

One does not treat cancer, but treats the cancer patient. I do not feign to have a regime for us all. But you, my reader and my patient, I cannot see inside you. You must examine yourself in light of these findings. I leave you with a final question: are you sick?

Vital Signs: Personhood, Identity, and Anxiety

Anxiety as a consequence of being human

We have looked at the causes of our love of entertainment. Let us look to an area of life that is both caused by and causes such love: anxiety.

The autonomous person knows what he is and guides his life by that belief. This knowledge is theoretical; it concerns general principles. In this instance, it involves the specific difference of humanity—what makes us different from other species.

Anxiety is, among other things, the feeling of one who is uncertain about what and who he is. Anxiety is provoked by a lack of knowledge. Anxiety is the result of investigations into those topics that most regularly elude the mind’s grasp. For instance, one cannot see the future, and thus becomes anxious out of fear for the possibility of it going poorly. The future is not the only field rife with anxiety. The epistemic terrain is treacherous in the topography of human nature and the abyss of individual interiority.

To be anxious is a mode of consciousness. It is the feeling of uncertainty. The emotion felt along with anxiety, fear, contains the suspicions of paranoia, but is more localized than generalized. It is a felt manifestation of limitations. It is the nearest one comes to an awareness of the outer state of impotence. Protracted anxiety atrophies the will. One wants something more, but has been so long unable to know what that something is, one is unable to do more.

How does entertainment bear upon autonomy? Entertainment keeps us away from gaining knowledge. Its object, after all, is to captivate, not to edify. This would not be as much of a problem if a person already knew what they needed to know. How, though, could a person know what she needs to know to be autonomous if she never pursued wisdom? How can a person pursue wisdom if she does not allow herself to be engaged during her leisure time? Thus, love of entertainment causes anxiety by preventing investigations into areas of knowledge needed for autonomy.

Even if someone took the time to ponder such questions, she would not find the answers quickly. Humans are a thorny bunch to theorize about. It appears other creatures are the sorts of things that have natural ends by which we can measure each individual member of the sort. An acorn will grow into an oak tree. This is the acorn’s essence, what it is supposed to be. If it does not become an oak tree, we judge it deformed, diseased, or otherwise unsuccessful. There is such diversity amongst the final products of human seeds, we wonder where we can find a standard of measure for ourselves.

The confusing state of human affairs gives rise to debate. Philosophers dispute whether or not, for humans, essence precedes existence or existence precedes essence. In plain language, the question is whether a person is a member of a class of beings meant for a certain end (e.g., to become happy, to become rational, to know and love God, etc.) from inception or whether a person exists without a pre-established identity or purpose. In the latter scenario, everyone creates an identity or purpose for herself through living life and making choices.

Observe that both parties to the disputation must concede the indisputable fact that a person first knows of his existence before he knows of his essence. This fundamental truth is the germ of much anxiety. What I am meant for? Where is my home? Is there nothing more for me to pursue beyond wealth and its trappings? One is restless in those possibilities and thus becomes anxious.

How would one go about answering what one is after all? We have capacities and abilities, freedom and duties. We have possessions. We have bodies. We have personal histories. How could this all fit together into one neat explanation of an essence that describes all people? How could one know one’s design without appearing dogmatic? Truth and opinion are less distinguishable the more conviction infuses the topic. Where else would more excitement be aroused than in response to such humanly fundamental questions?

Concealed in the chronology of knowledge is the source of the weightiness of life and the lamentable state of many of our contemporaries. First we are, then we know we are, and only then do we begin to wonder what we are. Every person at some point in her maturation wonders what she is. Given the elusiveness of the answer, we opt not to pursue the question. We do not have to know what we are, so we stop asking. When we move to this phase of being, we transition to a state of despair.

If one was to venture a proposal on the subject, one would be set up for the greatest disappointment. To start, one would risk being judged poorly by others. (Only a fool thinks we have a grand purpose!) Worse still, one would risk being wrong. (Only a fool thinks she know what our purpose is!) How could one endure error here—living under one notion and then being brought out of it into the humiliating light of truth? What unspeakable regret!

Skepticism seems the safest bet. But what is the skeptic to do with himself then? Whatever he wants? Whatever the whimsy of his society dictates? This makes an effigy out of a man. He is packed with kindling that cannot withstand the first spark of inquisition. Surely autonomy does more than grasp at those straws. Could the refuge instead be cynicism?

Now we wish we would never have indulged our curiosity. No, it is easiest not to pursue frightful questions. Leave behind the question of what sort of thing we are. Dismiss it as academic and archaic. Dismiss the question as useless. Let's be practical.

Anxiety as a consequence of self-reflection

Practical reason is the faculty of adjusting means to ends. A person wants food, so (in the contemporary context) she goes to the grocery store. In deciding to make such a trip, the person has exercised her practical reason. Practical reason thus requires you to know what is personally possible for yourself, i.e., your own personal means. To know this, you must know yourself.

Now we have raised a whole new question. The question of who you specifically are remains even if you have dismissed the question of what it is to be human. What is your identity? For a thing to be identical, it must be the same despite alterations in time and space. What about you does not change? More importantly, what about those identical features is fit to guide your life?

Rather than theorizing, we need to introspect. Although the tool is different, the result is often the same. Watch the fever of anxiety flare up again in response to these other weighty questions. We know that we have these bodies, these faculties, and these possessions. Yet, we do not know what to do with them because that would require an intimate understanding of our personal possibilities and their respective importance.

To the anxious person, a conception of identity is viewed as a burden rather than a blessing. When we answer the question of who we are, we limit ourselves. When we are “this” we are, by implication, not “that.” ‘Could “this” be all that I am?’ the anxious person wonders.

Let us start on the surface and work our way in. The first candidate for identity is the most superficial: the perceptual definition of a person. When a person sees herself captured in an image, she sees herself fixed. She thinks in response to the image, ‘This is who I am.’ Whenever she looks at a photograph or reflective surface, she sees roughly identical image to what she remembers. She thinks it this a source of her identity.

Stopping here will not suffice. There is a gnawing truth biting into the person who rests in superficial definitions: that is not all. There is more to us than that. Beyond what meets the eye, there is the conventional list of name, height, weight, race, age, education, and occupation. The totality of the list seems incomplete. ‘Am I just a 5’10”, 160 pound, Caucasian, 30 year old?’ Is this how I can be summarized?

We can expand the considerations beyond those fixed uniquely to us. Surroundings, shared interests, and locations can be so constant in a person's life that identifying himself with them comes naturally. We may add occupations, hobbies, hometowns, and relationships to the list of identifiers. ‘Am I a political science major working in a menial job?’ Is this what I have become?’

If the assessment is honest, it will be open to unsavory definitions. Do our flaws define us? ‘Am I a lackadaisical son? A luke-warm lover? A C+ student? A body twenty pounds overweight?’ No, that is too self-loathing. Let us supplement this list with commendations. ‘Am I attractive? Wise? Strong?’ Yes, but…

Impatient for results or suspicious of those reached, we stop pursuing the questions once more.

If one feels poorly, one can either leave what is felt or leave the one who is feeling. The exterior world (what is felt) is not normally so distressing as to require chronic distraction. Addiction to distraction suggests the thing taken leave of is the self, not the problematic definitions. One is always keeping company with oneself. One is always relating to oneself. To take leave of oneself, one alters one's identity. Misidentification of self can cause an urge to escape. Such is the case when a person laments an incomplete definition. Anxiety gives way to despair and the person leaves herself rather than the mess.

Entertainment for the Anxious

We cannot be free from anxiety because we cannot be rid of uncertainty. Without being able to move forward to greet our ignorance and strain to learn, we look to the next readily available option. We can suppress the awareness of our trials. Who one is appears problematic, so one despairingly departs from the problem. Anxiety can be ignored and entertainment can help. We can continue with the simple knowledge that we are--that we are what we see in the mirror, that we are hungry, thirsty, and tired. We can live our whole life tending to those conditions. Thus, anxiety causes the love of entertainment by making captivation more desirable than introspection (and its consequent disturbances).

Preoccupations with wealth and entertainment whisk people away from considering their identities. Wealth and entertainment exclusively emphasize and utilize the exterior. Wealth is won outside of oneself. Wealth is worn outside of oneself. Entertainment is drawn from outside of oneself. Entertainment draws one away from oneself. Interiority has no place in these concerns.

Entertainment is popular among adults because of what we have done (e.g. worked) and where we are (e.g. the contemporary culture). It is also widely desired because of how we feel (e.g. anxious and tired). Indeed, it is most useful in addressing desires. Entertainment efficiently manages problems of consciousness since it is something of which to be conscious. Rather than pursue the queries, we run from them and into the arms of entertainment.

In response to anxiety, we search for something else to occupy our thoughts and distract our sentiments. Enter entertainment. To be a distraction, one must first be aware of something else. A distraction diverts consciousness from one object to another. Some distractions are unwelcome, as when the sound of a machine interrupts a conversation. Other distractions—entertainment being one of them—are invited. A person chooses to watch television or plug into a game rather than attempt some other duty or answer a pestering question like what or who one is. Via distraction, we suppress our unease. We paint over the cracks in our foundations rather than excavate and rebuild.

Some means to suppress anxiety are inherently immoral (e.g., violence), others are moral (e.g. charity), and others are neutral. Entertainment, as we established earlier, is neutral in itself. For each individual, the choice of entertainment is more or less warranted given their character and circumstances. Entertainment may be abused like any other method of psychological suppression. Entertainment as distraction is unwarranted suppression. Entertainment as relief is warranted suppression.

Once more, look to medicine as a guide. When one is sick and seeks treatment, we call him wise. When one is well and seeks treatment, we call him a hypochondriac. The former is honest with himself; the latter makes believe. Oh the irony! The hypochondriac is sick, but not sick with a disease to be treated by pain medication or antibiotics—not sick how he thinks he is sick. The hypochondriac is justified in seeking treatment, but not the treatment he actually seeks! So it is with the lovers of entertainment: they need something to be mindful of, but not that which they choose to mind.

The distinction between distraction and relief is largely contextual. The justification for an individual's choice to suppress tension is found in the state of the person when choosing. In certain contexts, distraction is indicative of despair. Despair is personal resignation. When we either sense we have fallen short of our goals or have ceased to pursue them, we despair. Despair is a mode of consciousness that poses a threat to one's mental or physical integrity. The threat lies in hopelessness. Without hope, one is unwilling to be active. In this way, inactivity also leads to lethargy. (Note how inextricably linked this illness is with its symptoms.)

One can be undisturbed while being empty. One can steal contentment. Distraction is a tool with which people pick the lock on the gate to happiness. If one does not notice one's hunger, one can be spared the pangs. Prolonged suppression of the appetite leads to starvation, after which one is spared everything. Lamentably, we are more apt to notice the fact of a vacancy rather than the kind of vacancy. One intuits something is missing, but does not go farther. Woe to them who, rather than ascertain what is missing, stuff themselves with whatever it is at hand. That which one needs bears no causal relationship to that which is at hand. What is nearby may be a remedy, but how good is it? It may be a shoddy fix, like patching a tire with bubble gum. For the mind, the vacancy of hope is all too often packed with entertainment.

This is the danger with convenience generally. There is nothing wrong with freeing yourself, but what are you freeing yourself up for? Let us take a page from the book of economics. Remember the notion of a cost-benefit analysis. It costs you something to free yourself from a responsibility. Do so only if the benefit you receive is greater than what it costs you. The cost for entertainment is your attention and a portion of your assets. Is being unaware of anxiety worth more? What a horrid notion of value when one prefers being pleased to being human, which always involves more than the pleasant!

But that is our tendency: to take the path of least resistance. ‘This charge of autonomy: who asked for it? Not I! Would that we took it easy instead! Where is that remote?’