#112: You can’t force desire
Learn how joy emerges from the long haul, why slow growth builds resilience, how desire can’t be forced but invited, and why escaping thought patterns is key to true presence.
👋 Welcome to this week’s Pursuit. My name is Amir, and each week, I go over 10 hours of content about personal growth and mental well-being, bringing you four insights and thought-provoking perspectives from leading thinkers. I hope to have a tiny impact on your life and inspire you with the tools to lead a more fulfilling life.
This week at a glance:
⏳ Finding joy in the long haul of things
🏗️ Why slow growth is stronger growth
🚫 You can’t force desire
🕊️ Escaping the cycle of thought
⏳ Finding joy in the long haul of things
Practical joy is diligence and routine — asking for the magic to show up again and again, knowing it can’t find you unless you sit at the desk and pay attention to the movements of your mind. Practical joy is finding peace in the long haul of things, in eking it out day after day. I find practical joy in the mundanity of daily life. I like the walks by the water and the lull of the waves. I like putting chrysanthemum buds in boiling water and fixing the TV and seeing the same 5 friends regularly. I get to write at night and I show up to the office and research and think and meet interesting people building companies.
✨ From loving the slog
🏗️ Why slow growth is stronger growth
But this is perhaps a golden rule with building anything. The faster you build it and more you rush it, the more fragile it is. The slower and more naturally you construct it, the more durable it will be**.** Obviously it needs to be moderated. If you're too gentle with yourself then the change might never happen. You could end up being somebody who sits around saying "oh I want to quit drinking" for ten years.
But if you’re patient and keep nudging yourself in the right direction, the change you want might just naturally emerge. And it would be better to develop one habit over the course of a year than to fail to develop twelve.
✨ From Slow Habits
🚫 You can’t force desire
Desire and intimacy can't be forced. Desire is both simple and complex. You can't manufacture it, just like you can't force yourself to be hungry. What you can do is create the conditions where it might naturally emerge. But this requires letting go of the need to "prove" anything.
It's about thinking less. It's about understanding that desire isn't something you can negotiate or reason your way into. Sometimes, it's about finding new ways to connect that don't start with physical intimacy.
Real intimacy grows in the spaces where we stop trying to control outcomes and start being present with what is. It's about creating safety for honest conversations, even when they're uncomfortable.
✨ From The Arc of Love - The Other Woman
🕊️ Escaping the cycle of thought
Every thought is an echo of one that has already existed in the past. That time you worried about that stupid thing you said is a pattern that has cycled through billions of other human minds. Same goes for the regrets that are difficult to shake. If anything, you can take comfort in knowing that there’s nothing novel about it.
Being present is in understanding this tired nature of thought, and silencing it altogether. Because it is only in this state where something truly new can be felt. For example, if you’re looking out at a still lake and are fully immersed in what you are experiencing, there is a novelty that emerges from being in that specific combination of time, attention, and space. You’re not thinking of what comes next; you’re simply there. But if you look at the lake and think, “Wow, that’s so beautiful,” then you have allowed thought to enter the frame, which will inevitably introduce feelings of longing or grasping. This pulls you out of the moment and opens up the door to desiring this experience again, and any pattern of this nature is never new.
Ultimately, presence cannot be experienced if thought exists alongside it. Wherever there is thought, there is narrative, and a narrative arc of any kind gives rise to the shadow of an age-old pattern. In the end, the best way to step into a moment isn’t to remind yourself to be present, but to enter it without any expectation of the memories it may yield.
✨ From The Tired Nature of Thought
🎵 Music I’m listening to
You’ll find mostly Ethnotronica, Organic House, World, Disco, and Organic Electronic here:
🎧 If you appreciate the music I carefully select and haven't followed my Spotify playlists yet, now is the perfect time to hit that follow button and join me on this musical journey! 🎶
🌒 Pano: Danceable and electronic obscure songs
🌓 Sisy: Ethnotronica and organic house
🌑 Berghain: Dark, minimal techno and tech house
🌕 Heide: Groovy soul and disco house
🌞 Sonntag: Afterhours shit
🦥 Slow rave: Sleepy techno for tired danced
🌎 World: From Latin jazz to Turkish psych
🌚 Super Slow: For your intimate moments
Previously on Pursuit:
