I Want!

Love is a statement: “I want.”

I

want

to get to know you better, I

want

to spend time with you, I

want

to share myself with you, I

want

to see how you will react to this or that. I

want

to know your thoughts and feelings

.

I

want

to run downstairs and greet you with open arms when you come home.

I

want

to take care of you when you’re feeling unwell.

I

want

your happiness.

I

want

you to feel safe, protected, loved and cherished.

The list goes on and on, of course – the essential aspect of

“I want” is:

compared to what?

All desires are limitless; all resources are limited. This fundamental principle of economics applies equally to questions of preference

and prioritization.

I can say:

“I love squash,” but that does not mean that I want to play it 18 hours a day, since that would leave me injured and unable to play squash.

I can say:

“I want to lose weight,” but that does not mean that I

really

want to lose weight, if my following statement: “I want another piece of cheesecake,” takes precedence.

I can say:

“I want to be a millionaire,” but that does not mean that I’m willing to sacrifice my leisure in order to achieve that goal.

Thus preferences must always be measured relative to each other.

In the example of Bruce and Sheila at the beginning of this book, we can see their initial meeting was characterized by a form of “fusion,” wherein they developed a kind of one-dimensional “intimacy” by isolating themselves from the world, thus largely rejecting the ecosystem of competing demands. In this way, they really did not get the chance to see how they really “competed” with other priorities, which did not give them an objective way to really determine each other’s value.

I used to work as a software executive, and traveled fairly regularly. I would say to my wife:

“I love spending time with you,” but that did not mean that the only thing I ever wanted to do was to spend time with her. I certainly preferred spending time with her to going to work, or on a business trip, but it was in order to retain my pleasure in her company that I felt it incumbent upon me to contribute to the household income.

Life is a balance of competing pleasures, as we all know. I have to get up early, but I want to finish watching a

midnight movie. My wife is calling me for dinner, but I am right in the middle of a video game. I want to continue working on this book, but a Freedomain Radio listener has an important question.

In the absence of outright evil

and corruption, there are no particularly objective “right” answers. Should I continue working on this book, or take a call from a listener with a problem? There is no totally objective way to answer this. We do not receive medals in the afterlife for the actions we take in the here and now. No one is “taking score,” or giving us marks for right or wrong behaviours (except our conscience of course). We do not answer to an objective and conscious “higher power.”

We do have an inbuilt desire and drive for the truth, since we live in objective

material reality, which consistently reinforces the objective and rational principles that define the truth.

We do have an inbuilt desire and drive for moral

justifications, because all human beings feel a fundamental need to be virtuous.

We always have the choice, of course, to either be virtuous or to just define whatever we’re doing as

“virtue,” and thus corrupt both ourselves and the world.

In the same way, we always have the choice to either love

honourably, or to just define whatever we’re doing as “love,” and thus corrupt both ourselves and the world.