Or, how to preserve desire
How can we act differently in the face of our programming toward desire, so as to be able to use it rather than be used by it?
“Don’t eat the whole carrot.” That’s it. And be okay with not eating it all.
The secret to using desire in the most effective way is to leave it dangling, and be at peace with that. So do not give everything and do not take everything. Do not completely resolve the “tension” of desire. Do not give the whole answer in a conversation. Stay a little bit hungry, and so on.
We see demonstrations of this approach to desire in so‑called “catchy” article titles, in advertising, and among those who know how to stoke other people’s desire. They artfully seduce…and then leave others wanting more. But it is overused. We are overstimulated by announcements that try to trigger this process. It is difficult to see how and why we might use it positively for ourselves.
To grasp the whole picture, you need to understand desire: how to kindle it, how to sustain it, and how to extinguish it.
So, how do you extinguish all desire? Simple. By satisfying it as completely and as quickly as possible. It is interesting to note that the tendency of almost every desire is, generally speaking, its own extinction. Few people see any value at all in maintaining a desire. Keep reading and you will learn how to achieve its opposite: keeping desire alive.
You desire something? Know that human beings evolved to like “desiring” (which is paradoxical, given that desire seeks its own extinction…). One could even say that we “want to want”. We like wanting. We long to long. Many people find that desiring gives life its flavour and moves us forward. We can even see desire as the cause of movement, of every “impulse toward”. No action without desire. In every area. From the very material to the very spiritual. You want to move forward? Learn to appreciate being “thirsty” for life and to preserve your thirst.
Of donkeys and carrots
You know the analogy of the donkey and the carrot? If you let the donkey gobble up the whole carrot, it will no longer have any reason to move forward.
Yes, even if it eats all of it quickly, its hunger will return, but the mechanism of rapid satisfaction creates a problem: habituation. Moreover, by running on the pleasure of the quick, fully eaten carrot, it no longer thinks about moving forward (which was the original purpose of putting a carrot in front of it), only about getting its next carrot. It no longer follows its function and no longer appreciates the process, only the end result, and it will always want more.
This is similar to the way many people devour their romantic relationships, their projects, their little “happiness fixes,” becoming more and more addicted to the hit of neurotransmitters than to their partner’s well-being or the quality of their project.
The goal of our donkey then becomes to be able to just sit there (no more movement), to be constantly hungry (excited because it wants to want), so it can devour an uninterrupted stream of carrots. Desire, which once made it move forward, will have turned into a halt of movement, just to buzz on endogenous drugs. The donkey will have confused dopaminergic pleasure with real happiness.
And there you have it: we have just described the natural tendency of human beings and their drift toward inner stagnation if they do not realize that this is happening within them. Yes, taking a bite of “the carrot” can motivate one to move forward… The idea here is not to finish it completely — so as not to extinguish the very engine of movement.
Preserve desire
The solution therefore lies in not seeking perpetual, total, and immediate satisfaction. The one who resists it avoids helping to program themselves for stagnation and addiction to indulgence. Ideally, all this happens without inner frustration, thanks to an understanding of the benefits, which are much greater than those obtained by the immediate extinction of desires.
A person who integrates this into their life is very likely to “move forward” better. They will have more vitality, enthusiasm, and appreciation for everything, because this kind of action preserves the strength of desire at its peak and allows them to use its power.
They will naturally have a good life, driven by desire used effectively. In fact, a whole series of positive changes occur in an individual who can “make the pleasure last” in a healthy way, not consume everything, not seek to exhaust satisfaction. Dr. Huberman has described some of the inner changes that result from this approach to desire, among others those affecting the aMCC (anterior mid‑cingulate cortex), Resistance develops and increases inner strength, willpower, discipline, and clarity of mind…
To sum up:
**“How do you train yourself in this? Learn to walk the fine line between “letting go of a desire” and repression.
- Disidentification. Realize that waves of wanting pass through us but are not what we truly are: ‘I am not the hunger hormone’; ‘I see desire as a magnificent wave of vitality but I am not that wave’; ‘all of humanity tends to succumb to these waves through identification; I see this tendency in myself and smile at it without suffering.’
- Practise voluntary discomfort, with enjoyment.
Here are a few examples; there are many more.
- Food is an ideal area of life for this. You can: not only eat what gives you pleasure; eat less and better; skip a meal if you eat well the rest of the day; even start fasting – if your health allows it. Hunger is a situation that naturally occurs several times a day: there is no need to choose a special moment for a practice of re‑orienting our approach to desire; you can do one every time you are hungry. This is even crucial to our success in this re‑orientation: if we obey ghrelin (the hunger hormone) every time it sticks its nose out, we do not grow in relation to the human problem of desire… Can we even call ourselves ‘spiritual’ or say that human growth has begun if nothing has changed at this most basic level?
- Appearance (dressing to please or to belong to our ‘tribe’, using make‑up, etc.). It is perfectly possible to be clean and neutral without suffering from feeling invisible, if you can see through the false pressures of society / family / friends regarding appearances.
- Conversation. Try not talking about yourself for an hour, a day, a week! Talk about the other person, to the other person. See this as a way of reducing selfishness, amplifying your empathy, and notice how others appreciate being the subject of the conversation instead of you. Yes, ideally things would be ‘give and take’: an equal exchange where each can speak about themselves. I am only suggesting practising a rare extreme from time to time: stepping yourself out of the equation.
- Certainty. Certainty kills curiosity, that beautiful desire to know that needs to be nurtured. The idea that we do not know everything can be uncomfortable but remains a lovely impulse, a carrot that keeps us moving forward. Take delicious bites of knowledge, yes, but do not become certain of anything. You would kill the engine of knowing; you would become a ‘con‑vinced’ person.”
- Breath retention practises (kumbhaka in yoga, in pranayama exercises). Hold the air after inhalation and after exhalation, for longer and longer (always safely – if you turn blue, stop!). Even learn to appreciate the body’s possibly uncomfortable urge to return to normal breathing. Realize that the discomfort is not you; it is the body, it is the impulse of life.
- Continent sexuality practises have been considered by many schools around the world (Chinese Taoist sexual traditions, Vajrayana Buddhism, Shaiva Siddhanta such as in Kashmir, Western esoteric schools, etc.) as the most potent of practises for preserving, re‑orienting, and wisely using desire, when done well. But not just any kind of sexual practises, as we’ll see.
Controlled sex and flow
Some approaches (such as most neo‑tantric practices) actually prolong bondage to desire, simply dressing it up with sage, incense, and promises of Awakening. People often confuse the release of trauma (which is still beneficial) with the release from obedience to desire (which is much rarer).
The result is that we become uninhibited and push past certain limits. It’s a start, but it is still the same inner master giving the orders. Once those limits are crossed, other levels of liberation exist — far deeper ones.
True advanced practices of conscious intimacy go in a different direction. They prolong the tension without resolving it (thus they align with everything said in this piece). They seek to dwell in the fire rather than to extinguish it.
Rather than identifying with desire, in this practice one tries to remain present with the impulse, to let it circulate, to listen to it, to transmute it — without aiming at indulgence (which ideally has already been explored earlier in life). The body then becomes a laboratory of alchemy: desire stays alive, its extinction is no longer a necessity, and its preservation actually becomes essential to using it.
(I must add that these practices, when done well, can lead to much more than a redirection of desire, but I want to stay within the scope of the topic — sustained desire — and make it clear that even in their immediate effects, this practice has impressive benefits.)
And this is why (among other reasons) this practice is the summit and works in depth, even neurobiologically. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his theory of flow, showed that when a person experiences a state of total concentration, intense pleasure, and loss of the sense of time, their brain literally rewrites the connections between its neurons.
Choose what you would learn during sex
During intimacy, this flow state can be reached more powerfully than in almost any other human activity: concentration, fusion, and the disappearance of the ‘me’ can be very strong indeed.
What is experienced in this state is deeply engraved within.
We rewrite ourselves with every intimate act.
Each way of loving, breathing, relating, and touching reprograms the neural networks linked to attachment, reward, and desire — possibly more than through any other ‘practice’ or life situation.
If the practice aims only at satisfaction, it reinforces obedience to the dopaminergic reflex: I want → I take → I extinguish. I should add that there is nothing ‘wrong’ with seeking satisfaction: this is the primary human tendency and it has fueled the survival and expansion of humanity. In contrast, conscious practices go beyond the primal tendency, in the direction of a different kind of freedom.
When intimacy cultivates presence, appreciation, awareness, love, and duration, it instead strengthens the capacity to remain in fruitful tension: I feel → I stay → I keep the flame alive. I then evolve, with each act, into a completely different kind of human being: free.
Thus, sex becomes a ladder for climbing up or sliding down.
Ascent: when tension is transformed into freedom, contentment, clarity, and active love.
Descent: when it solidifies the human tendency toward compulsion, instinct, and conformity to our fundamental programming. These may include other common (and not necessarily desirable) human behaviors during the act, which may also be reinforced: violence, abuse, belittling, cruelty, etc. For many people, sex is dirty and base, and they allow themselves to indulge (even just mentally) in the worst possible emotions and impulses in connection with it.
I’ll say it again: what we experience during the act (the good as well as the bad) gets solidified. What we choose to be in that moment can therefore alter and define an entire life. What do choose in that moment?
Other Practices
There are many other practices for learning “not to eat the whole carrot,” for cultivating the maintenance of desire’s fire. Since the urge to extinguish desire is omnipresent in nearly every aspect of our lives, we can find practices to integrate everywhere.
Examples: nurturing the thirst for knowledge, exposing oneself to cold (cold showers) or heat (sauna), etc. Even certain martial arts practices go in the same direction. For example, Kyudo: Japanese archery where the goal is more about observing our desire to hit the target than actually hitting it. This practice allows one to see desire without following it, without frustration.
Through such practises and the perspectives they develop within you, you will move toward becoming a lover of tension, or more poetically, a guardian of life’s flame. You will move forward, propelled by a fire that never goes out.
