Joe makes a radical reframe of desire: wanting isn’t a problem to solve or a weakness to overcome. It’s life force itself.
“Wanting is aliveness.”
“There’s nothing that you do that isn’t based in a want.”
The Thought Experiment
Joe asks: Could you imagine being told you can have sex for the rest of your life, but you’re never allowed to want it?
That’s terrible. But that’s what we do to ourselves when we suppress our wanting. We strip the joy out of life.
Wanting as Emotion
Most people think of wants as objects—things to acquire. But Joe reframes wanting as an emotion, something to be felt and savored:
“The most important thing is to feel wanting. To allow yourself to have the physical emotional experience of wanting. To just sit in that, to bathe in that, to savor that feeling.”
The feeling of wanting, when fully allowed, is quite lovely. It’s only when we can’t be with it that suffering arises.
Related Concepts
- The difference between craving and wanting
- Owning your wants means being okay with having them
- Purpose is lived in the present moment
- Wants are strategies for essential human needs
- Searching for purpose avoids it
- You only get the love you can let in