Craving excitement!
I am always waiting for something to happen.
I notice this a lot as I get older; maybe my life has just become uneventful. But I might just be sitting there, with family or friends, or at home by myself, and I can feel this craving for something to happen, some excitement to come into my life.
I don’t know if this is the thing that Buddhist’s warn about, desire and repulsion, the two drives that keep us in perpetual state of suffering (which, I can sum up, with a very superficial example: I see someone who catches my eye – but the moment I speak to them, my nose twitches with the shock that they have terrible breath and I feel automatically repelled – just as they too are horrified to get close-up and realise I have hair growing out of my ears!)
Well, according to the Buddhists, these are the two poles that we constantly fluctuate between – and my constant craving for excitement is probably at the desire end.
But I can’t help it: I am always hoping that I will fall in love with someone, even though my life might not be completely together; or that someone champions my audio work, and I get offered a legitimate income to do it as full-time job.
So I try to put my cravings, and longing for excitement, into my stories. That’s the only place they can really go. So my characters get to do the things that I am wanting to do; become the people I would like to be; experience the romantic moments I am hoping for; and end up bettering themselves in some way.
So if it’s not happening here, at least it’s happening there.
And I can feel a little bit better, craving less, while someone else, somewhere else, takes a sip of a fruity cocktail.