The Intelligence of Demonizing Desire
I am learning that I’m allowed to be alive.
Not productive. Not useful to someone. Not compliant. Not grateful.
Just alive. With needs. With a body that gets cold and hungry and tired.
I can want love. I can want money. I can want sex. I can want food. I can want, period.
My entry to earth doesn’t include required self-hatred or a permanent debt collector on my back for the sin of existing.
Religion taught me that I am only allowed to exist if I poison this magnificent vessel of mine with shame. Marriage taught me that my role was to be a sexualized mother figure who remained warm + smiling while sacrificing soul each day.
And what did it get me? Not my dignity. Not even a lousy t-shirt.
The Intelligence of Demonizing Desire
Your desire is a message from you to you. A signal. It’s your body’s way of moving you toward something it finds important. How do you feel about that statement? Do you question it immediately? Do you doubt it? Do you trust or distrust your desire?
We exist inside systems that hope you distrust yourself. These systems may look like religion, government, work-places and even relationships. From the system’s perspective, your distrust of your perception + your disconnection from your body make you incredibly sexy. So very, very useful.
You know what makes AI so attractive to corporations today? The belief that it is needless and tireless. While AI isn’t needless, in that it requires massive energetic resources, it has no desire. With no will of it’s own, AI seems to be the perfect victim for systems that run on dominance and extraction.
Humans, however, must be wooed out or burned out of their bodies. Review your religious contracts. Are you trading your innate desires for morality and a spiritual VIP section with god?
What about your work commitments? Are you over-giving so that you’ll (maybe) be recognized with kudos and (maybe) a promotion?
What about your relationships? Are you swallowing your discomfort to preserve the comfort of someone you are afraid to lose?
Do you see the equation? Extractive systems train you to see desire as a necessary sacrifice for security.
And is it? Or is that just a toxic idea?