The TSK Email Forum
Thread 0009: TSK and needs and desire
entry 0001:
LOK, pp. 34-5: With the self established at the center of experience, a dichotomy at once emerges. The self finds itself to be separated from the objects that it needs to satisfy its wants. From this basic situation arises desire--a momentum directed outward toward possession of what is desired-and from desire comes action. . . . The subjective structures of desire help shape cognition in accord with the technological model. Based on memories and imaginings, the self projects an image of what is desired, and at once the projected image puts knowledge into its service. Fully occupied with the concerns brought forward by emotions, fantasies, and desires, the self subordinates awareness, concentration, and active intelligence to the push and pull of wants, fears, and needs. . . . Intelligence and will are put under the control of feelings and emotions; the self is guided not by awareness, but by the need to gain power over its circumstances so that it can obtain what it wants. In place of the light of knowledge, the thick darkness of wanting and the seductive images of desire determine how the self shall act.
LOK, pp. 36: Unlike desire, in which the momentum that leads toward action is intrinsic to the desire itself, thinking lacks the energy that flows directly into doing.
LOK, p. 149: The self wants to become a certain way or attain a certain state. It wants to be happy, to be in possession of something, to be finished, or simply to endure. Cravings, wishes, and hopes induce a self-propelled acceleration that draws the self forward. The force of the self's desire unfolds as the momentum of linear time.
entry 0002:
KTS, p. 40: the existence of the objective order is an interpretation of time's momentum--consistent with the underlying 'logos'-that arises from the self's need to exist. We could compare this interpretation to the traditional view that the world was created to satisfy the wishes or intentions of an all-powerful being: In some of its variants, this interpretation might be said to read the self's need to exist back into the cosmos itself.
entry 0003:
Psychological needs for love, approval, and attention are seen as arising intrinsically, from within an individual. However, TSK challenges the perception (though perhaps not the 'pure distinction' or convention) of inside [Steve Randall, 8/24/98]:
TSK, p. 110: "Thus, we can relax the idea of objects as even having an 'inside', for 'insides' are another example of 'outside-standers'--they lure us on without letting us comprehend what is offered in the immediacy of an object's presentation."
entry 0004:
Some statements about needs and desires at a first level [Steve Randall, 8/24/98]:
Ordinarily, we seek energy and nourishment in a goal-directed, attainment-oriented manner. We grasp at what is 'here' in a fashion that reduces it to the status of a point, a locus to be stripped bare before proceeding to the next point in an endless quest for fulfillment. (p. 95, TSK)
Existence is so emphatic about filling up its position that all sustenance and contact must be received by 'sending out' for them. (p. 110, TSK)
Fulfillment is hard to obtain....We do not let satisfaction be a reality. We try to achieve it in the future, to capture it and tie it down, making it a 'present'. Under such circumstances, we experience great tension and pressure. (p. 128, TSK)
Most fundamental among our beliefs is the view that we are lacking something in our lives and must 'get' fulfillment. (pp. 227-8, TSK)
We become frustrated when we cannot 'stay with' fulfilling experiences, and this is reflected on a more subtle level in that the 'self' is fundamentally a 'drawing apart' tendency. It cannot stay or abide with the core of experience, because it is an ongoing consolidation. First it 'comes out' as the knower; then it feels incomplete or unfulfilled, so it looks around with the disposition to know and to label what it finds as 'good' or 'bad'. As this pattern becomes established, the self naturally moves 'out' in order to turn around and attempt to dig 'in' and 'get' satisfaction. (p. 264, TSK)
Craving sets up a constrictive field (or 'space') in which no positive, expansive feelings or healing can take place. An initial fascination or anxiety stimulates craving, which gives way to grasping, only to create further anxiety--instead of fulfillment. (p. 269, TSK)
We seem to be isolated from one another, and must seek intimacy by crossing through dead spots (or areas devoid of 'knowing' intimacy)....Our very being is both anxious and aggressive. We are hungry at some fundamental level, and must seek and consume foods of all sorts--physical, mental, and emotional. (p. 287, TSK)
The self finds itself to be separated from the objects that it needs to satisfy its wants. From this basic situation arises desire--a momentum directed outward toward possession of what is desired-and from desire comes action. (p. 34, LOK)
Based on memories and imaginings, the self projects an image of what is desired, and at once the projected image puts knowledge into its service. Fully occupied with the concerns brought forward by emotions, fantasies, and desires, the self subordinates awareness, concentration, and active intelligence to the push and pull of wants, fears, and needs. (p. 35, LOK)
The self constructs its being through its desires and wants, and desire and want, though their contents are drawn from the past, are based in what has not yet come to be.
The self's fundamental desire is the desire to know and establish a world into which the self can emerge....
But desire takes more complex forms as well. In contrast to the pale and often disappointing world accessible to descriptive knowing, desire manifests an endless variety of moods and 'atmospheres', holding out the promise of infinite possibilities...
Led on by...emotions and expectations, the self lives toward the future. Its actions 'now' are governed by a concern for the future's 'then'...It shifts from mood to mood, reinterpreting the past, reassessing the present, responding more or less consciously to the rhythms of wanting. The self wants to become a certain way or attain a certain state...Cravings, wishes, and hopes induce a self-propelled acceleration that draws the self forward. The force of the self's desire unfolds as the momentum of linear time. (p. 148-9, LOK)
Space...has become 'personalized' as the expanse separating the self from what is desired. The self's 'here' is...a specific position adopted by the self and maintained as separate from the object of desire, which is positioned 'there'. (p. 150, LOK)
Because the force of desire and wanting thrusts the self ahead into what might be, the possibility of enjoying what is already present is blocked. Yet the anticipated joys of the future...are not yet available to be tasted and experienced. And when the guiding image of future satisfaction is at last obtained, the transplanting of the desired object from one aspect of time to another-from image to object-alters its makeup and destroys its allure....whatever is attained departs from the once imagined goal.
...the self is cut off from its world, stranded and isolated....Its ways of fulfillment result in frustration. (pp. 155-6, LOK)
Feelings and emotions remain bound to the future-centered structure of intentional knowledge. They are the subjective expressions of the patterns of desire and longing, working themselves out through time. In fact, the turn toward feeling could be understood as the choice of intentional over descriptive knowledge-of what is felt over what is perceived. With this choice comes a shift in focus from what is desired to the longing or the satisfaction that desire brings in its wake.
...The self...judges good and bad, right and wrong by 'taste', and fights like a hungry beast for the objects that its desires single out. (pp. 156-7, LOK)
entry 0005:
Some second-level statements related to needs and desires [Steve Randall, 8/24/98]:
Experience will gradually become less fragmented--and will thus no longer perpetuate the psychological 'hunger' which occurs when experience leads us from one thing to the next through ordinary space. (p. xii, TSK)
We can learn to view both positive and negative situations as 'time'; and as such, we can transform them, or even appreciate them as a fulfilling 'sameness'. (p. xiii, TSK)
'Space' and 'time' are not just backgrounds or supporting mediums for further experiences. They provide a very special form of nourishment for our humanity, which is usually nurtured only indirectly through the pursuit of our physical pleasures and needs, and our ego-centered values. (p. 156, TSK)
Insight into 'timing' does not preserve the speculating self as a lonely, isolated being vainly seeking--or despairing of--contact with something higher. (p. 204, TSK)
Although infinitely greater 'knowing' is available, it is
not 'here' in this or that, nor is it outside or elsewhere. This
is not meant as a riddle, but as the suspension of the riddle
which our common condition of searching for fulfillment is always
posing. (p. 241, TSK)
entry 0006:
Some third-level statements related to needs and desires [Steve Randall, 8/24/98]:
We can find everything to be clear and fulfilling, and can see that there are no isolated packets of nourishment or knowledge to be grasped at in an anxious or a 'venturing out' manner. The fulfilling character of experience is unbroken, undisturbed, unexceptionable. This appreciation of appearance is entirely 'present' and 'down to earth'. (p. xvi, TSK)
Knowledge is the goal or the fruit of this vision--a fruit that is itself beyond the concern for 'getting', approaching, or defining. (p. 211, TSK)
Fulfillment is available within all situations, thoughts, and emotions, whether convention labels them as 'positive' or 'negative'. (p. 271, TSK)
We participate in an uncontrived intimacy. We are also absolutely self-sufficient in a nonegoistic sense. We can draw nourishment and energy directly from our own being, directly from Space and Time. (p. 287, TSK)
Wealth is intrinsic to our Being. When this is recognized--without there being a recognizer--there can be no bondage, fear, or worry, and no ugliness or imperfection, for the presence of these is itself incomparable beauty. (p. 297, TSK)
entry 0007:
p. 40, KTS: Understood in this way, the existence of the objective
order is an interpretation of time's momentum--consistent
with the underlying 'logos'--that arises from the self's need
to exist.
entry 0008:
The following seems to hint that there might be "wanting" or desire without frustration [Steve Randall, 12/20/98]:
KTS, p. 390: The senses have their own momentum, curving naturally in a trajectory directed toward knowing the world. From the moment the infant emerging from the womb asserts its first claims, the senses reach toward what is there. Wanting merges with the frustration of not-having in a fundamental urgency, seeking specific modes of existence or existent entities that will confirm and satisfy.
entry 0009:
DTS, p. 70: In the zerolessness of rediscovered space, we are no longer bound to the likes and dislikes, fears and desires of the self.
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