As with many things with a bite or harshness, we tend to shy away from longing. It stings and hurts a bit, but if you are prepared, it can bring with it a deep, sensual satisfaction.
Some people prefer milk chocolate over dark, mayonnaise over wasabi, having over desiring. The former are fine, but there is something to be savored in the shock of the bitter or the heat or the ache of the latter.
Though the initial sensation will make some avoid them completely, the bold few who carry on and submit to the intensity are rewarded with a more complex pleasure.
Yes, it is nice to have. It is nice to eat the meal you delicately prepared with your own hands, it in nice to reach your peak while making love, it is nice to attain that which you crave. The preparing and the touching and the desire are integral pieces of the gratification.
You can dismally cook as though it were a drudgery, fuck mechanically with only one purpose in mind, you can pout because you don’t have what you want the moment you want it, but in the end, you are cheating yourself out of the full ecstasy of the experience.
I try to remind myself of this fact when I begin to feel that ache in my chest. I tell myself to relish the hunger, cherish the concentrated punch of desire coursing through my being. How amazing to feel something so intense, there is a pleasure in this pain like a ravenous caress.
I want to enjoy the entirety of my experiences, from the yearning to the achieving to the having. There is a melancholy that accompanies acquisition. As Ernest Hemingway put it, “After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love…” That is what most people don’t understand, the ends are such a small piece compared to the means.
The same way I will not deny myself the burn of Thai chili, I will not rob myself of the bittersweet pleasure of the throbbing desire in my heart. They are mine to savor.
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