Yearning

 

 

 

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.” ― Fernando Pessoa

It is absolutely common for us to feel unfinished, unfulfilled, needy and restless.  We are driven to want ‘more’ of everything we do not have and we may not even have a sense of what that ‘more’ is.  In part, it is our limbic system/lizard brain/Ego (Lizard brain" refers to the oldest part of the brain, the brain stem, responsible for primitive survival instincts).  Yearning belongs in the reactive family of Grief. 

Yearning is also associated with Adoration, of sorts.  We seek what we believe we would adore.  We can ache for that which we believe is the Ultimate.  We are driven to seek it, to find it, and know fulfillment.  There is a constant sense of needing that which we believe would finally satisfy that hunger within.  It can be risky.

We all know the sense of loss when something we thought was better, was more, was the best, and have it not be filling at all.  The old adage “Grass is greener on the other side of the fence” is some sot of hope that things/a thing, will finally be More.  Do we seek ecstasy?  Perhaps, yes, we feel that there is/are a thing/things, people, places, that will be more Joy than we have now.  Perhaps it IS risky to reach for the stars.  Perhaps we might disintegrate into particles of grief if it is not attainable.  We may feel that we are being punished, in some way, for not trying to reach that which we sense as The More.  Perhaps the finding that what we thought would give us More, and we work and try and wear ourselves out trying to attain something, only to find it was merely a mirage.  Perhaps, if it is not fulfilling, our grief will be magnified and so we fear to even try to attain it.  Thus we live in a residual, gnawing, place of need. 

Perhaps what we yearn for is not a physical, intellectual, emotional person, place, thing, but is a spiritual thing that we have attached to something more solid, more identifiable.  Perhaps we apply substitutes for a spiritual thing that something ancient in us desires.  Have we spent a lifetime (many lifetimes) trying to fulfil a need for something we have lost the name for. 

I am wondering, always wondering, sometimes aching, for something we had, in the past, that we have attached a longing to/for.  Could it be that we long for something in the past that took our breath away and we, mistakenly, have made more of that which we had?  So, is yearning something we lost and are trying to revive?  Yes, I wonder about such things? 

I do not have the answer and I have a sense of circling round and round my personal definition of More and do not quite know the name of that we long for.  In German the word “Sehnsucht” defines that sense of yearning for that which we do not have, do not even know the name of, but is a longing that is never quite fulfilled.  In a sense, sehnsucht is that which would give us a sense of meaning in life.  Maybe we long for the purpose for our being here at all.  What does it mean to truly live, to know one’s purpose?  And, would that be fulfilling if we knew it, or would it be risky and fearful if we knew our purpose down here one earth.  Would that satisfy this gnawing , this dull ache, if we knew what we were driven to do, to have, to be? 

Consider what you yearn for.  Can you follow the thread of thought until you get to the key person, place, thing that you feel would fulfill that longing?  I guess all we can do is be adventurous, be curious, be a person who risks the journey to fulfillment of any kind.  I have had my breath taken away by the beauty of my new born children.  I have had places that took my breath away ( like a time when, on a gray stormy sky, a sudden ray of sunlight spotlighted a small space on a pond that glowed in its difference).  I have received gifts that took my breath away in wonder and in a sense of being worthy enough to receive such.    Can you define something that you year for?  How ecstatically explicit can you say, know, what would finally satisfy you?  I consider such things.

©Carol Desjarlais 12.2.21