Yesterday writing about desires and responsibility, talked about having a balance for both. It was clear the blog was written by acting mature trying to explain the need to balance by being innocent. But it did ended up rationalizing desire to a feeling to be organized.

Desires are our most native and humane feelings, core of core, what makes us the person we are. Can we truly organize them? or are we fooling ourselves in trying to organize them and balancing them with our responsibilities?

Yesterday, while watching “Into the Wild” I realized, what I had missed out on. He had issues to sort out, parents who lied to him, making him question his own existence. Hitchhiking and running to the wild was intended to find himself among the truest of surroundings, the nature. He did all of it, and then while reading a book, rekindled the desire to return. Sadly he could not, and he ended by dying in the wild. Sad, very sad, but not what you will think that where desires and urges will take you. Or is it? Wikipedia tells us that it is a true story of Christopher McCandleless. He is criticized for not being practical enough to carry a map or compass equivalent to committing suicide. But that’s the point, he was being innocent, letting is desires explore the realms of his capabilities and he was not exercising his responsibility to himself. All the rules of common sense demand adhering to principles of outdoor survival but a guy driven by his desire to find himself cannot be made responsible.

That’s the point at the end, is that where we have to be always, explore desires but stay responsible. Does that even satisfy the desire in the first place, or create a mirage of satisfaction? I have no answer to this question, but I do ask myself this.

But there is a new challenge, which comes I guess with age, that may have lead to the answer. It is the realization and then a trigger to visualize your life at a certain age, further down at age of 35, 40, 50. Those years are not far as they seem to be considering how far one has come from 20. This visualization forces one to reconsider about regrets that may happen at that age. Those regrets will never be reconciled with or will be too hard to. What one may have done till one reaches a certain age, what are the desires for one’s life and its potential? Such a visualization on one side can renew one’s vigor to fulfill desires, but it definitely re-enforces the responsibilities to oneself, to loved ones and to society. I am not sure at that age, having fulfilled the desires will be what I will personally feel comfortable about. What about the responsibilities to myself and those unrealized potential.

Rationalizing desires sounds self-defeating in first place, but at the end life is a journey, a marathon not a 100 meter sprint and you want to be happy and satisfied when you reach the finish line. So go on, fulfill your desires but focus and work hard on your responsibilities to one’s self, loved ones and society. You may know everything yet know nothing, live with a frame of responsibilities while indulging in desires and make traveling through life worthwhile.