Desire-less

               It is interesting getting out of the seminary because I do not know what to do with myself. I have been a student for as long as I remember. With the suddenness of this situation, I found myself unable to get into another school for the spring semester.
               I do not know what I want out of life. Becoming a seminarian required that I relinquished many of my desires. For example, a priest is told where to live, his pay is set, and he can’t have a wife. It was my experience that growing up, one should desire a nice home, a good paying job, and a loving family. It isn’t that seminary knocked these desires out of me, but I ceased cultivating them. I stopped daydreaming about the future and what I would like from it.

               I have an idealic notion that one should have a gnawing hunger for life. This is not only a hunger for the future, but also for the present. I wonder how such a hunger comes about. I wonder what kind of growth passion comes from, and is such a thing immediate or slow growing? Are such passions natural? Must they be cultivated, tended, or kept in check?

               Not only do I not have a great ‘life passion’, but I seem to lack ordinary wants. It seems that I can walk all the isles of all the stores and not find anything that I really want. I wonder how people generate desires to go to certain colleges, other countries, or specific jobs. I seem content to drift through life until I find something that I enjoy.

               I believe my ‘desire-less’ state is quite a natural result of my peculiar position in life. I would be worried if the second I got out of seminary I had a great desire to move to France and attend culinary school –or something of the sort-.

               I would not mention any of this, except that I think that a great number of other people are equally lost. In the end, I find that my lack of desires boils down to one desire: to have a great desire. It is rather ironic, but I think it is a wonderful place to start.