I have an illness called Wild Lust.
When it comes on, I’m debilitated and unable to work effectively. That’s why I call it an illness. To call it such is more a what-other-people-think-about-it thing. Really, it’s more like a vibration in my heart, or a line drawn up my center towards somewhere else that I’m not.
I said somewhere else, but its not a certain somewhere that the Wild Lust draws me. It grabs me when I need to be taken away, and it takes me to where I can find what I need. It doesn’t give it to me, but it makes the finding possible. It does this no matter how unreasonable I think it.
The Wild Lust often causes problems.
I can’t always follow the Wild Lust when it comes on, just like sometimes I get sick but can’t admit it because I’ve too much to get done that week. When that happens, the symptoms of the Lust creep out through my shell like a runny nose. I drink too much to lose my balance. I jump on my bike when I should be going to bed to get lost down dark streets I don’t know. I write to find an outlet when I’m caged up by my bedroom walls.
The Wild Lust is the gravity of a life in movement. The lightness of traveling somewhere new, of moving beyond what I know and am comfortable with, is the feeling that I call vitality. To stay in one place is fine so long as other unmapped territories are on the menu: adventures of mind or spirit or body can take place anywhere. But there’s really no substitute for a new place, where I no know one and have no way to define myself but by how I act and how I explore. To be uncertain of the outcome and then to succeed is the ultimate satisfaction.
Part of me wishes that I could be happy to seek a still contentment, but as it is, I’m a stir-crazy young Siddhartha looking for all that the world can offer. Just like the 8-fold path, there’s only one way that the Wild Lust affliction progresses;
At first it tickles, and then it prods. It grows more difficult to ignore until it gnaws. Prudence and savings fall by the wayside, as do projects, classes, diet, and hygiene. In a sudden moment, the Lust becomes unbearable, and movement instantly becomes the first priority.
Then I’m off, to elsewhere.
Alive again.