I know it’s a simple
question. Maybe even an obvious one. That we yearn is self-evident. But how
often have you asked, Well, why? Why do we yearn?
We all want something so
achingly badly, it hurts. To find love, to create something substantial, to
leave a mark, to connect, to feel joy, to feel calm, to be safe, to have more,
and then just a bit more, and on and on. But it’s always something that is just
beyond our grasp.
And because we’re all so
familiar with this fundamental state, I won’t keep on it. But when you ask
“why”, well, that’s when the concept really gets interesting.
Do we yearn because it is an
exquisite pain, something bigger than us, something so heartfelt it reminds us
we’re alive? Do we yearn because it forces us to keep pushing ourselves to
greater heights. I mean, without yearning, would any of this—this, look around, all this stuff—be here, or would we still be back
in caves, not even a fire to warm us because we haven’t yearned it into
existence?
I know what I yearn about. I
yearn about love. So I seek it out, always striving to keep it around me, truly
suffering when it is threatened (or worse). I yearn about getting my work out
there, not so that it’ll be some award-winning achievement (although, sure,
that would be nice), but in a way that will collect people around my “tribal
fire” so I can tell them a story—true or fiction, both—and we can laugh or cry
or wonder together (hello, blog buddies!). But here’s the rub: even when I have
these things, the yearning doesn’t go away. The yearning yearns for that something
to either be more than it is or it
yearns against the fear that it might go
away, as if there is an absolute certainty that something great will end
and I will suffer.
So what do you yearn about?
And why do you think we yearn at all?
Deb: What a provocative subject, Barb. Yearning, I think, is what
keeps us going. I myself yearn for a very long life. That has always been my
yearning. I want to live well and I want to live long. I yearn to travel the
globe with my family. I want to see as much of it as I possibly can. The long
life I yearn for will help with that quest. My yearning changed over the years.
When I was younger it was always about art, and it still is, but not as strong
as other yearnings, I guess. Clearly my yearning is still learning!
