8:33 pm - Thursday, Nov. 18, 2004
\"Desire Is The Fire Of Life\"
This was an email forward Jane recently sent me:

DESIRE IS THE FIRE OF LIFE

If you want something strongly enough,
you're sure to get it.
If you're willing to pay the price
any of your circumstances will change.

Obstacles become of little consequence.
Pain or other circumstances can be there.
But, if you want something enough,
you'll find a way to get it done.

Reality forms around your commitment to succeed.
Your desires will in time externalize themselves into concrete fact.

You only have to love a thing greatly to get it.
The key to your success is desire.

(�2004 by Max Steingart www.maxsteingart.com)

That email from Jane was very timely, because I've been thinking about "desire" a lot lately.

Of course, my most obvious desire, the one I obsess over most in here, is my desire to be an actor.

What's interesting to me about that desire, as opposed to pretty much any other desire I can think of, is that I'm not ambivalent about it in the slightest.

A lot of other things I want, or even think I want, have a "down side" that I don't see with acting (I worry about getting the other things I want, while with an acting career, the only worry I have is that I won't get it, and what do I do then?).

I've been thinking about another pet, because I'm feeling very lonely. But to be honest, other than keeping him alive for ten years or so, I don't think I did all that well by Leo, my late cat. To put it plainly, I think he would have been better off somewhere else (It bothers me to admit that, but I'm not writing a journal in order to "shine my halo").

I haven't demonstrated much ability to "nurture" things so far (I'm not even much good at nurturing myself). And while I wish I were a different guy in that respect, I think I have to come to grips with the fact that this is who I am, and not use a cat or dog as a "test subject" to see if I can change.

I'd like a human companion as well (My strong preference would be for a woman), but I'm even more "iffy" on that than I am on pet ownership. I've failed a couple times now, and failed big, on the "relationship front", hurting the other people involved (The last time literally), and leaving myself (figuratively) scarred for life.

I don't think I was ever very good in the relationships I was in, and I don't think I'm aging like a fine wine in that regard; the longer I'm alone, the more difficult I think it'll be for me to ever successfully be with someone. Wanting someone in your life also amounts to having to "deal with" someone in your life, and I suspect that that skill, never highly developed, has eroded a great deal over my "single guy" lifetime (Honestly, it's way more about them having to deal with me than vice-versa).

I want to be loved, to be sure, but I honestly don't see it happening, and am not at all sure I could deal with it if it did. And I'm even less sure I have it in me to genuinely love anyone.

And let's not get me started on children...

(Long story short--I definitely feel "paternal stirrings" in the presence of children, but I don't think I'm ever going to be in the "putting someone ahead of me" business also known as "parenting". And that tells me that, whatever else I think I might have to "offer", a child would be a very bad idea for me).

Of course, I could be wrong. I could be "selling myself short". Maybe I have more of a capacity for love and caring than I know.

But I'm afraid I'm not wrong. And it seems like I've got my hands full trying to find enough of a "capacity for love and caring" to keep myself afloat.

Anyway, my point is that I have reservations, and pretty severe ones, about most of the things I desire in life.

Except for acting.

I want to be an actor, it's what I came out here to do, and I'm starting to think (In part because I have no "resistance" to the idea), that it's going to happen (It is happening, in point of fact).

But I can't have a life based on acting alone.

Can I?

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