Desire and What We Find of Value in Human Life
Earlier, I discussed briefly the role desire plays in creating the ethos for developing products, services and the ways of life these create in return. Anytime we develop something new, we are in effect the development: we redesign ourselves every time we create new tools for our survival and betterment. We are re-designed by these tools and we re-design with them our human behavior space.
'Desire is the ultimate source of action.'[1] The desire to survive, the desire to achieve a different level of existence: these are the ultimate sources of action. The question for you right now is: What do you desire? How open are you to understanding what you desire and to believing that this desire can transform the way you look at everything else? Understanding the nature of your desire can create a path for a new journey of life.
What is it that we desire? The media that both define where we are, and where we want to go in life. We exist not because we are here, now, but because we want to become and we strive for more, and because we made the choice of defining ourselves as different than other animals. Striving for more and wanting to become, are foundations for the architecture of existence and the primary value metrics in human life. Looking at everything around us you will see statements about who we have become through our desire and striving. The buildings, bridges, paintings, technologies, music, roads, all you can see and hear are manifestations of our desires to leave a mark, to participate, to know, to understand, to maintain, to enhance, to actualize and to propagate. The Taj Mahal would have never been built, if we didn't desire to leave a mark. Most of the monuments that you know are about us, making sure that we are being seen through other people's eyes.
Somebody needed to be seen, and that's how the Eiffel Tower was built. Every human artifact that is of value to us must answer this singular question: How is this a medium for me? How can this allow me to satisfy, to actualize, to propagate, to participate? How does this allow me to leave a mark? How does this allow me to reach my next destination? Facebook is an exemplary model of a medium that answers precisely these fundamentals.
- [1] Aristotle (1986). De Anima. London: Penguin Books Ltd.
