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Wishes
3 min read · 756 words
Wishes are preferences about outcomes that cannot be directly controlled. They form continuously. What gets done with them determines whether they remain harmless or compile into ongoing dissatisfaction.
The hardware produces wishes the way it produces hunger and thirst. The system generates preferences about what the life would contain, about what other people would do, about what conditions would be. Some of these preferences correspond to operations that can be run; those are not wishes in the sense of this entry — they are intentions or goals. The wishes are the preferences about what cannot be directly produced: the wish for the other person to behave differently, the wish for the past to have gone differently, the wish for the conditions to have been different than they are.
HOLDING WISHES INTENSELY
The wish that the partner were different. That the parent had been different. That the body were different. That the past had not contained what it contained. That current conditions were not what they are.
Each wish, held intensely, produces continuous comparison between the wished-for configuration and the actual configuration. The actual configuration always falls short. The life accumulates dissatisfaction without any change in the conditions the wishes were about.
The wish does not move the world. The wish moves whoever is doing the wishing — toward a continuous quiet complaint about the life they are nonetheless living.
SUPPRESSING ALL WISHES
The opposite failure mode.
Suppressing wishes as evidence of inadequate acceptance produces someone who does not register preferences that might have informed legitimate operations. Some wishes report on conditions that could change through operations the person could run. The wish for different relationship configuration could inform either the conversation that might change it or the decision to exit. The wish for different work could inform the operations of change.
The wish suppressed reflexively prevents registration of what might have been actionable. Acceptance of conditions is one operation. Pretending no preference exists about them is another, and they are not the same.
SORTING WISHES BY WHAT IS ACTUALLY ACTIONABLE
What does the person wish were different? Which of these is actually about something that could be influenced? Which is about conditions outside any control?
The honest examination separates the two. The wishes about influenceable conditions can be converted to intentions and pursued. The wishes about uncontrollable conditions warrant a different response.
HOLDING THE UNCONTROLLABLE LIGHTLY
The wish does not change the condition. Holding the wish at high intensity produces only ongoing dissatisfaction.
The configuration that acknowledges the preference while accepting that the wished-for change cannot be produced runs more sustainably than the configuration that holds the wish as ongoing grievance. I wish this had gone differently, and it didn’t. I will engage what actually is. The acknowledgment is honest. The holding is loose. The configuration continues without continuous low-grade complaint.
CONVERTING WHAT CAN BE CONVERTED
The wish that could plausibly be pursued gets articulated as intention. The operations begin.
The wish that the body were different becomes the operations the body would respond to. The wish that the relationships were different becomes the conversations or changes the relationships could respond to. The wish that the work were different becomes the operations of moving toward different work.
The conversion is the operation that distinguishes the wish that became reality from the wish that remained wish.
TRANSMITTED WISHES
Wishes held about the people in one’s life often transmit even when not explicitly stated.
The partner who reads that they are wished to be different. The child who reads the same. The colleague who reads it. The transmitted wish produces effects in the relationship that may not have been intended, and that often interfere with the relationship that was wanted. The wished-for version of the person is what is being held in mind. The actual person feels themselves being compared against it.
WISHES VS LONGINGS
Some wishes are surface preferences. Some are deeper longings that report on something substantial the life lacks.
The deeper longings often warrant attention rather than suppression. They may be reporting on something that could be engaged if examined for what the longing was actually about. The longing for solitude in an over-scheduled life. The longing for depth in a network of shallow contacts. The longing for meaning in work that has none. These are not idle preferences. They are signals — the harder ones to hear because they require larger change.
The system generates wishes. The inhabitant decides what to do with them.