Hell - defined.

Hell is having what you want at the end of your fingertips and not being able to reach out and grasp it. Or being terrified to reach out and grab it. Or reaching out and it moving just enough to continue to be just out of your reach.

I seem to be stealing vibes from others today but there must be something in the air.

Monica wrote today about desiring and reaching out but being afraid of being foolish or being slapped away. Essentially, that is what holds us all back from our desires in our lives. What if we reach and we exceed our grasp? What if what we reach for pulls away and disappears? What if reaching out hurts so much because our muscles are atrophied?

Monica said, “I cannot say my wish out loud or in my mind for fear that it is not for me to wish...” I constantly feel that, especially now. I thought I made peace with what I want and what I desire and what I wish for but apparently can’t have, but I haven’t. Especially that what I want, desire and wish for is very often at the end of my fingertips – literally. And I have to almost sit on my hands to stop from reaching out and grasping what I want, desire and wish for.

I shouldn’t complain. Much of what I have wanted and reached for in the last year has come somewhat easily into my grasp. Maybe that’s made me cocky and feel that anything I reach for, I should get just because I’ve decided to put my fingertips out there and ask for it.

Reaching makes us vulnerable and exposes our tender underbelly, leaving it open to be cut open and our intestines strewn on the floor. Okay, kinda graphic but that’s what it feels like. Once you’ve had your intestines strewn, you’re not so ready to reach out again.

Yet, if we don’t reach, how do we attain? How do we get what we desire without extending our hands? My hand has been slapped away recently and it stung – it still stings. Yet I can’t seem to help myself from wanting to reach out again, to the same person, for the same thing, because it’s what I want. And I think, deep down inside, he’s afraid to reach out and that’s why he slapped me away. And I foolishly think that if I keep my hand out there, maybe, some day, he’ll be able to see it and reach for it instead of slap it away.

And yet, I’m torn. Part of me is tempted to pull that hand away and use it to push him away completely, because I’m tired of holding that hand out. It would be so much easier to just put my hand to his back and let the door hit him in the ass on the way out. Yet, my other hand wants to grab him and hang on to him and pull him close in any way that I can have him there, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how many times he slaps it away. I want, I wish, I need and it is fulfilled in a very tiny, tiny way because he’s at the end of my fingertips… but I can’t grasp him so… push, pull, want, need, reach, push, pull…

Monica also said, “Maybe I like my suffering.” I think maybe we get used to suffering because we’re told we can’t have what we want by society, by parents, by others around us. Religion tells us it’s a sin to want, to need, to ask for what you want or need. Yet God says we should ask so that He can give it to us. Although there’s always the caveat – if it’s His will. So I keep optimistically lighting my candle in my Buddha, chanting om mani padme ohm, saying a prayer of thanks followed by my list of what I want, and hoping that, if I badger God and Buddha enough, they’ll give me what I want, just to shut me up.

The catch-22 is we suffer so much because we want so deeply. If we only could want just a little bit, would the suffering be easier? Or would we still ache and hurt and weep and suffer? Would it be worth lessening the suffering if we could lessen the want? I don’t know. When the want is filled, it is amazing. And if we wanted less, then the reward would be less, I think. So, I guess that means putting up with the suffering so we can get as much joy when the want is filled.

So is there an answer? I don’t think so. We want because we do. That’s it – simple yet complex. We want illogically, irrationally, but passionately and endlessly. We can no more control what we want than we can control the beating of our heart. And wanting means that we feel – both good and bad. We want, we suffer, we are elated when we get it, we are devastate when we don’t. What’s the alternative? To not want, to not need, to live our lives like the majority of this country – following blindly, moving thoughtlessly, living mindlessly, never knowing, never seeing, never reaching out for something that is what we want, that is just beyond our grasp, that is the most frightening thing in the world.

I guess I agree with Monica. I guess maybe I like my suffering. Because when it’s over, I know that I have experienced something, I have lived, I have felt. And I’ll do it all over again in a heartbeat.