what do you desire

I was reading a quote by Alan Watts and I thought to share

what do you design what makes you itch

what sort of a situation would you like that suppose I do this often in

vocational guidance of students they come to me and say well we're getting

out of college and we have the faintest idea what we want to do so i always ask

the question what would you like to do with money were no object what would how

would you really enjoy spending your life

well it's so amazing as a result of our kind of educational system crowd of

students say well we'd like to be painters we'd like to be poets would

like to be writers but as everybody knows you can't any money that way

another person is what i'd like to live in out-of-doors life and ride horses

I said you want to teach in a riding school

let's go through with it what do you want

when we finally got down to something which the individual says he really

wants to do i will say to him you do that and forget the money because

if you say that getting the money is the most important thing you will spend your

life completely wasting your time will be doing things you don't like doing in

order to go on living that is to go on doing things you don't like doing which

is stupid

better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life

spent in a miserable way and after all if you do really like what you're doing

it doesn't matter what it is you can eventually turn it will eventually

become a master of the only way to become a master of something to be

really with it and then you'll be able to get a good feel for what it is so we

don't worry too much that that's the where everybody's somebody's interested

in everything and anything you could be interested in you will find out what is

absolutely stupid spend your time doing things you don't like in order to go on

spending things you don't like

doing things you don't like and to teach our children to follow the same track

see what we're doing is we're bringing up children educated to live the same

sort of life pendant in order that there would they may justify themselves and

find satisfaction in life by bringing out their children to bring up the

actual to do the same thing so it's already know vomit it never gets them

and so therefore it's so important to consider this question what do I design

well when we answer that question in a naive way we figure out that we want a

desire what we want is to control everything to create girls that don't

grow old apples that don't rot close that never wear out advances that get

from one place to another instantly so we don't have to wait power available to

do anything that you could see and do it just instantly like that to get this

funny technological omnipotence but if you take time out to think about that

and really go into it with your full strength of imagination and find out

whether that's where you want to be you will soon see that's not what you want

because the moment you have a situation where you are really in control of

things that is to say in which the future is almost completely predictable

a completely predictable future is already the past you had it

that's not what you want

you want to surprise you don't know what that's going to be because obviously

wouldn't be surprised if you did what a pleasant surprise but like you say what

sort of a surprise would be pleasant

you can't really answer

because you know if there are to be such things as pleasant surprises that must

also be unpleasant surprises must be rude shops so you're like somebody

taking a one of those wishing well boxes you top to know where you fish it and

you bring out a package and you don't know where you got a dead rat in it or a

new camera then that's the way that's that seems to be the thing that really

excites people but quite certainly there comes out of this inquiry

feeling of

real disillusionment with the ideal of power to be in power to be in control is

not something that any sensible person people are frustrated in love with your

children

there's a natural tendency to human beings seek power and that's a very

negative things about having a bad time c power after frustrated in love you

should try to get back on the love people because nobody wants power you

may say that shirking responsibility that if you were a really responsible

person you would go out for power and try to use power to the best possible

advantage for the benefit of all

all right what would be the benefit of all ask them

what do you want me to do with his power

I'm dictator why would you like to do well nobody knows because they haven't

thought it through

they think of all sorts of short-range things and they are largely conflicting

and confusing because they're not well-thought-out but again when it

finally comes down to it nobody wants to be God