The DESIRE Issue
Somewhere beyond the realms of want and need lies desire. It’s a strange pull — voluntary enough to feel like a want, but powerful enough to feel like a need. Desire comes to us in many forms — it could be the desire for adventure, for love, for success, for enlightenment, for life itself. The degree to which desire influences our choices depends on how well we really listen to and understand ourselves. What is it that you truly desire? When you quiet your mind and pay attention, what does your heart tell you? Have you been listening to it? If fear is the push that propels you into a freer, more honest future, desire is the inexorable pull that draws you further forward. Society has taught us to ignore its irreverent and often illogical call, but
what if heeding it is the key to truly living?
Cover story: In Conversation with Rathimalar Govindarajoo.
EDITOR’S LETTER
Growing up, I heard a lot of conflicting opinions about desire, as I think we all have. We’re commonly taught that it’s something to be brought under control; that it’s wild, untameable, unpredictable, and therefore dangerous — therefore, wrong.
But now that I’m an adult, and I’ve had some time to think about it and come to my own conclusions, I don’t think desire is a bad thing at all. I think it’s precisely because it’s so unpredictable and primal that we should pay more attention to it.
Think about it — have you ever desired something so deeply that you would go to any lengths to get it? Have you ever known, in your heart of hearts, that something was meant for you, even though everything logical indicated that it was impossible? Have you ever experienced the surge of power that comes with knowing you would do anything to have it?
The way I see it, desire is more than just a lustful, impulsive attraction to someone or something. Desire is a subtle pull that transcends logic and reasoning — voluntary enough to be considered a want, but powerful enough to feel like a need. Its magnetism guides you down invisible pathways that may not make sense to anyone looking on from the outside, but you know, in your heart, that it’s taking you exactly where you need to go. In many ways, I believe desire is closely linked to our intuition; and when we learn to harness it and cultivate it, to trust it and give it an outlet rather than suppress it, we open ourselves up to whole new vistas of possibility.
My own relationship with desire has taken time to grow and blossom into what it is now. For a long time, I was hesitant to open my heart to it, having heard that it was something to be weeded out if you wanted to progress spiritually, or suppressed if you wanted to be successful materially. (What does the heart know about making money, right?) I’d also witnessed too many people I cared about going through experiences of wanting things and then losing them, or being disappointed by them. It would be far better, I surmised, to just nip desire in the bud, stick to what is safe and reasonable, and let my head make all the decisions.
But living like this gets a little stale after a while. Soon enough, I began to long for some sort of meaning, to be part of something greater than myself and to contribute to it. I’ve had enough interactions with the universe to know by now that when you sincerely ask for something, it delivers. (Maybe not always in the way you expect it to, but it delivers!) Over the next few years, I was given countless different opportunities to explore that desire — everything from getting involved in projects greater than myself, to having spontaneous spiritual experiences, to falling in love. With each one, I understood more and more how connected we are by our desires, how we’re constantly bonding over similar feelings of longing and fulfilling each other’s wants in different ways; and how it’s not always a weakness as many schools of thought would have us believe.
Desire can be a destructive force, yes; but it can also be a powerfully creative one, if we know how to listen to it. It can give us extraordinary levels of strength, focus, discipline and purpose, if we learn how to harness it. It can allow us to live our lives to the absolute fullest, if we decide to embrace it. In my own experience, desire has done nothing but open me up to more of what is possible. These days, it’s my heart that takes the lead, and my head has become her right hand man. She declares what she wants, he advises her on the best course of action; she makes the final decision, and he makes it happen. It’s an arrangement that works beautifully for me.
Allowing my desires to seduce me through life has made it more exciting, more beautiful, more meaningful, and showed me that I’m capable of so much more than I thought I was. Sure, it doesn’t always end pretty — I’ll be honest, it fucking hurts when things don’t work out the way you hoped they would. But when they do… oh, wow. Wow, wow, wow. Looking back on the way I used to live — closed off from desire, sticking to the safe and reasonable — I don’t even think I would call that “living” anymore.
In this issue, we at BRAZEN are exploring desire in all its facets. What does it mean to different people? How does it drive us crazy? How does it give us purpose? Is it really necessary to let go of desire, and if not, which desires are worth giving time and energy to? Over the next eight weeks, we will speak to a dancer on what desire means to her, and how it carries through into her work, her creativity and the way she lives her life; explore different perspectives on what desire feels like through poetry, art and illustration; explore our own personal relationships with desire; and invite you to do the same.
Because ultimately, an emotion as visceral as this is not something we can ever truly analyse. It will always be personal. It will always be unpredictable. And it will always be more powerful than we can fully comprehend.
I hope, over these coming weeks, you enjoy discovering what desire means to you.
Cheers,
Shanita Lyn Kumar
Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Shoutout to our first ever patron on Patreon, Andrew Wan, for making this issue possible!
