Found wanting

“What do you want,” she asked, for the third time in as many weeks.

That requires some explanation, obviously.  That sentence is one of the more overused in English partly because of how diverse its meaning can be depending on emphasis and delivery and context.  “what do You want” is completely different from “WHAT do you want” or “what do you Want” or even “what Do you want”.  This time it was more that last sense, or maybe a combination of emphasizing What and Want sort of equally.

I told her I hated that question.  She said it didn’t matter, I wasn’t going to weasel out of responding just because I didn’t like the question.  Which is a valid response, but I still hate the question.

Or more precisely, the lynchpin word in the question.  “Want” is an odd word.  I’ve been teaching my son the difference between “want” and “need” lately, as he’s been overly reliant on “need” (as in “Dad, I NEED more track for my Lego trains – I am serious, I am not kidding”).  But that act of explaining word difference has made me realize just how closely related the two words are in standard English.  Want, when used as noun, comes across as a real lack – a painful lack – which while it may be directed towards a non-survival-required object, still implies very much that one’s life is markedly poorer for being without said object.  “Found wanting” basically means “found to be in a state of failure” – surely, in that context, “wanting” means essentially the same as “in need”.

Over the past few years I’ve tried to eliminate “wanting” from my relationship vocabulary.  The process of first leaving my wife, then getting a divorce, then building a complex up-and-down-now-up-again relationship with a woman who could not be more different, the ongoing journey of becoming a decent if unconventional parent to my son, the evolution of my relationship with my parents as they age, living with a dog – all of these have made it obvious to me, at least, of the futility of “wanting” anything, in any sense of the term.  If I need something from someone else in a relationship, I’m being fundamentally unfair and unrealistic – they are different from me, they can’t deliver what I need even if they desperately want to, they can only offer themselves as they are.  If I want something – as in desiring it – well, great, and it’s appropriate to talk about our desires, but odds are the others in our life, no matter how much they desire my happiness, also “want” or “desire” something from me for their own happiness, and except in rare circumstances, those things are rarely equivalent.  Negotiating what both or all parties “want” is therefore going to involve compromise, or forgiveness, or a kind of gentle acceptance of the art of the possible which ends up redefining what you “want” into what you “can receive or be offered”.

Moreover, I’ve come to realize that even what I desire and what I need can be contradictory, at least on the surface.  I desire companionship and the easy grace of shared silence – but I also desire freedom of movement, the ability to chase the unknown, and active debate that challenges my own notions of what I hold dear.  What I want in my physical being – whether in intimacy or from the warmth of the air or the sound of dry leaves clinging to late autumn trees in the wind – often seems completely untranslatable versus the desires I have intellectually or emotionally.

I’ve also come to accept that what I need to feel “good” – or even “whole” – may not come, and that will not kill me or plunge me into an inescapable despair.  No one is ever fulfilled; we always are capable of wanting more.  I read in an essay that Thomas More was once asked “what do the citizens of Utopia do once they have crafted their earthly paradise”, and he said “they travel”.  Even paradise will inspire in us a curiosity for more, for a different perspective, for greater learning and adventure.  I will always want for more – and that is part of the beauty of this worlds that drives discovery and creation and that chase of the unknown that stands in opposition to the peace and simple shared quiet that we also want.

It has also struck me that in a world of limited resources, but unlimited complexity beyond any possible human comprehension, the discipline we should seek in ourselves is not to retune and restate constantly what we need, but instead to learn to marvel at how much we have been granted – particularly those of us lucky enough to come from loving (if always imperfect) families and communities, who do not need to worry about the necessities of life (even if we lack the new luxuries that seem so essential to modern living), who possess decent physical and mental health (even if we’re unable to throw a baseball or swim a mile in open water or control our anger or sadness when we most need to).  I’ve gotten better at appreciating that – a lot better than I used to be – and appreciating the mystery of life on this planet has made me marvel more and more at how I receive more from the things I didn’t think I wanted than I would get from that which my limited imagination coveted in the first place.

Wanting, in other words, ends up as a kind of blindness to the beauty of that which you are not yet capable of comprehending.  You might know what you want today, but by focusing on that, or trying to actualize it and bring it into being, you’re just reinforcing your own fears and biases.  I was trying to find a way to tell her – in saying “I hate the word want” – that by ceasing to want, I was trying to listen for the new song, to find the new beauty, the transcendent love that as a mere human I couldn’t find by desiring.  That if I said I “wanted” something, I’d feel I’d be cheating that greater beauty by simply desiring the simplistic Utopia which is all I’m capable as a mere human of imagining today.

But she did say I couldn’t get away with dodging the question.  Objection overruled.  The witness is directed to answer the question and is reminded of his oath before the court.

What I want, I told her, was to love and to be open to the love given by others in the way they can give it.  I meant it in all the meanings of the word want, but I really just hoped I could make that lynchpin word go away, and get replaced by a better word.  I’d love to be able to love fully, and I’d love to be open to the love of others without fear, with grace, with thankfulness.  I’d love to be forgiven, and to forgive fully, even though as a human being I’ll never do that as well as I want to.  And if I do that, I’ll stop wanting.

Isn’t that what you want, too?