SEVEN DEADLY DESIRES

What do we really mean when we say ‘I want this Thing; this Person’? It occurs to me that there is an underlying agenda to our wants and that any particular desire is actually a token, a metaphor if you like, for one or more of a set of uber (or unter?) desires. ‘I want a Ferrari’ on the surface implies simply ‘nice car, have that’ but what lies beneath? Need for speed? for status? When it comes to the shiny baubles in the shops sometimes I suspect that what we hanker for is simply reflected sunshine. And as for our desire for the Other, when it comes to love is it merely the security of the mother’s breast we seek? Desire, says Buddha, is the source of all suffering, so, let’s go hunting for a basic vocabulary of desire and perhaps thereby become free.

‘Seven Deadly Desires’ is the catchy phrase that seduced me quite some years ago when I first started thinking about this. Perhaps there are more than seven (this is where your help comes in) but you have to stop somewhere. Maybe they’re not deadly either. For all I know we might one day wind up with ‘Nine Perfectly Reasonable Mortal Expectations’. Hardly so memorable though, so meanwhile, seven it is and deadly too. I haven’t yet found a desire that can’t be dragged and dropped into one of the categories below.

They need a bit of explaining. A spreadsheet, I discover with amusement is the best way to go about elucidation. Don’t have the column width here to do it justice but I’ll continue refining it and eventually stick it to my website and post a link here. A philosophical spreadsheet – not many of them on Google – I may be the internet’s first Excel metaphysician! Here goes. Sorry 'bout the dots - the only way I can find to format legibly.

DESIRE……… PHRASE………...……………DAYDREAM
Attention…....Look at me………….…..Centre of the universe
Certainty….... I know……………………..Right and righteous
Control……..…I’m in charge…………...If I ruled the world
Increase….…..More!………………….…..Lottery win
Change…….….Somewhere else………..Revolution
Completion…. All done…………………..For ever and ever
Surrender…….Tell me what to do…...Read my mind superman

Fear, the subject of another list-in-progress, raises its head here already, unsurprisingly really since fear and desire surely are two faces of the same coin. Thus, without really intending, I find I’m one small step along the way to a taxonomy of fear. There’s space in this row too to explore a relationship side to all this which I’ll head, not that I’m cynical or anything, DEMAND. Or do I mean impossible demand?

DESIRE ...........FEAR ...........................DEMAND
Attention .....…Abandonment ……….…Me Me Me
Certainty......... Unpredictability .........Understand me
Control ............Oppression ..................Be mine forever
Increase........... Scarcity .......................Love me more
Change .............Stagnation.................. Become the One I want
Completion ......Insecurity.................... Mr/Miss/Ms Right
Surrender .........Enslavement ...............I’m all yours

Lastly, it lately comes to me there’s an upside (perfectly reasonable) to the fulfillment of desire and, naturally, a dysfunctional aspect too. I haven’t fully thought this bit through and the downside column especially needs refinement. Please add/subtract/correct me if you think I’ve strayed. Here goes anyway.

DESIRE .........UPSIDE......... DOWNSIDE
Attention ......Fellowship .....Delinquency
Certainty .......Insight.......... Megalomania
Control.......... Autonomy..... Paranoia
Increase........ Prosperity..... Greed
Change......... Growth ..........Dilletantism
Completion ..Achievement ..Fanaticism
Surrender..... Service........... Irresponsibility

RobV February 4 2008
Addendum
Google provides but a single link to the phrase ‘seven deadly desires’. Seems an artist by the name of Olga Kisseleva stumbled on the phrase as well. You can find her at -
http://www.cityofwomen-a.si/root_found/2004/ea_skuc.htm
Her list goes Wealth. Power. Success. Beauty. Celebrity. Pleasure. Tax-free.
I leave it to you to shoehorn these into my categories

Feb 22. V1.0 of possibly the www's first ever philosophical spreadsheet now posted at
http://robvalentine.org/7_deadly_desires.xls
but of course you'll need microsoft excel to read it.