Thought no.27 – Desire

“They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at -Elysian Fields” [Tennessee Williams – A Streetcar Named Desire]. There is a lot of symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire as told to me by my english teacher today. Elysian Fields is a metaphor for paradise or heaven and here in this quote we have life summerised to us by Tennessee Williams. Throughout our lives we are run by desire “a street car named Desire” and as humans it is something we let rule our lives and soon it shall lead us to our deathbeds “one called Cemeteries” as after all that is what life is all about – desire. Then if you believe it, we have the after life “Elysian Fields”. Our whole lives are compressed into this one quote and it says so much; our lives are literally desire and then death. With a couple of hiccups in between.

Desire is everything to us and as humans we always desire what we can’t have or what isn’t good for us. This need will eat all of us alive and we are never sated; we all want more, never happy with what we currently have. Desire is what drives us forward and drives us mad in the middle of the night. It is what keeps us awake as we stare up at the ceiling, our thoughts running wild like demons injecting desire into our veins. We become addicted to wanting something more, to have something other than what we have, never satisfied always craving but that after all is human nature.

Although desire can be like an itch that we scratch until our skin is raw it is also a good and wondrous thing. Without it we would never strive for anything, we would sit about and just let the wind take us. Desire is what pushes us forward and forces us to go after what we want, it is that niggling thought at the back of our minds that allows us to dream. Humans without desire are nothing. We would be empty vessels. Life would not be as developed and amazing if we didn’t have desire. We would be a lot more unhappy without it, as without it we cannot dream and dreaming is what we do best.

Of course there would be a lot less pain in the world if we were not all machines run by desire. Not having our desires met can be a truly horrible and unsettling thing, it can sometimes leave us in a pit of despair surrounded by darkness, or turns us into someone who will do anything to achieve their desire. Desire can both ruin and create lives, it was what makes us and breaks us. But in the end it does not matter whether desire is good or bad because there is no getting rid of it; it is human nature to desire something and either way it shall lead us to our death beds. We are all travelling on this streetcar named Desire.

Thought no. 4 – I’m alive

Sometimes I have these sudden realisations that I am alive and this is my life. I always think in these moments, what am I so afraid of? why am I so ashamed and fearful of telling people how I feel? I mean only get the one chance, this one life. Why do I just assume that I won’t achieve my dreams? I mean I can do anything and why shouldn’t I try? I mean I only have the one lifetime, so screw people saying you need to think of a realistic job, or you need have a backup. If I have a dream I should get to live it, I should at least try and live it. I shouldn’t be ashamed of my dream and concerned with what people think because screw them. I am alive! They are alive! Why should we spend our lives being unhappy? Why should we spend them not doing what we want to do?

But then of course these moments of realisation end and I am back to I was before, a deeply unhappy, unmotivated person who cannot see how huge her world really is and how full of possibilities it is. Why can’t I always be aware of the fact that I am alive and literally anything is possible and I can do anything. I think that that is one of the saddest parts of life, because don’t always see that you can do whatever you want and be whoever you want. Anything is possible and we so often forget that.