PRELUDE
DESIRE is the most powerful force in the world. It is the difference between failure and success and the one thing that separates heroes from cowards. Bait a downtrodden with the right object of his DESIRE and watch him rise as high as the highest heavens. Entice a coward with his heart’s throb and open your arms to welcome a lion. Seduce a failure with what she really craves for and sit back to enjoy the century’s success story.
We are well acquainted with these incisive motivational images. As children, we were indoctrinated in them by our parents. Our teachers told us stories of the great Achilles, Hercules and Alexandra the Great to get us wild the desire for greatness. Our pastors discussed Christian heroes who followed their desires to their destinies. In fact, we are asked to think big, advised that lofty dreams are our pathway to greatness and guaranteed that we would achieve anything we fix our minds on. These we were told, we believed them and they are true. However, the question which neither us nor our teachers have tried answering is: what is it about desire that makes it this powerful? This reflection will attempt to address this important but grossly overlooked aspect of the motivation narrative.
THE WORD DESIRE
Writers are notorious for using catchy words to woo their readers. However, the word DESIRE is not used here to have you come after me like the Greeks went after Paul in search of something new. For unlike Paul, I claim no special access to any new message from an unknown God. I bring you no specialized knowledge on the word DESIRE. DESIRE then, is used here in its traditional sense where it has the same meaning with words like vision, dream, goal etc. By DESIRE then, I am referring to that burning passion to see something actualized. This understanding automatically excludes the short term superficial feeling we have when we are thirsty, hungry or when we long for sex. In orders words, our idea of DESIRE here is particularly transcendental. It is anchored on the deep-seated quest for meaning lodged at the centre of our being. But this is not to say that what is desired is completely immaterial. It could be money, power or wealth. The only difference between IT and what is called superficial desire here is that ITS realization is connected with self-fulfilment. Every other thing in the life of the person who desires revolves around DESIRE.
THE BEST POSSIBLE WORLD
When the great mathematician, G. Leibniz proposed that our world is the best possible world, many including the British sempiricist, David Hume went to war with him. Hume was particularly vexed that anyone who had any claim to rationality would be so irrational as to say that a world, so unjust, full of suffering and chaos is the best of all possible worlds. Hume missed the gist. Leibniz did not say that our world is an actualized perfection. What he said is that our world is a potentially perfect world because it is a world of limitless possibilities. It is a world infused with the ability to overcome its imperfections. The point is this: God created a perfect world but this perfection is in potency waiting to be actualized in stages by succession of human generations. In doing this, God allows as creatures an aperture to share in his work of creation. So that the perfection of the world that is already potentially perfect cannot be actualize without human efforts. Ours is a wise God. Actualize perfect world, the sort Hume dreamt of would barren and bereft of all possibilities.
The motion towards the perfection of the world is governed by some predetermined principles. Thus, it is the responsibility of man to ensure that these principles are properly applied. However, man was not there when these rules were made. He cannot discover them on his own. These principles are communicated to him through his DESIRE. It is in DESIRE that God communicates to each man the role He wants him to play in bringing the potentials of the world to actuality. Hence, that restless DESIRE which is like a pivot upon which your life revolves, is not conjured up by you. It is a divine spark hidden in you. God is using it to connect you to your contribution in perfecting the world. In fact the DESIRE you have lodged within your innermost being is not your DESIRE. It is a tool God to actualize his purpose.
POSTLUDE: DIMENSIONS OF OPERATION
We have it on a good record that the Prince of Macedon, Alexander the Great was inspired by the life of Greece greatest hero, Achilles. In fact, Alexander was so obsessed about becoming like Achilles that he had Homers Iliad, which told the story of Achilles placed under his pillow, from when he was six to the day he departed this world. Nevertheless, the most important point we have made in this reflection is not that DESIRE is the most powerful force in the universe just because you are obsessed about IT the way Alexandra was obsession about Achilles. DESIRE is the most powerful force in the world because there is a rhythm between IT and God’s overall purpose for the universe. I will be a bad teacher if I end this reflection here. If I have told you that your DESIRE is supernatural, it is also my responsibility to tell you how you can discover, sustain and actualize that DESIRE.
HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR DESIRE
The world is like a huge ball of wave transmitter, constantly emitting billions of data on the constitution and mysteries of the universe. These emissions are what creatures, including human beings connect to, to discover their missions on earth. However the information a particular organism assess depends on the created capacity of that organism. This capacity is known as dimensions. For instance, dogs have developed offertory lobes and can on this account pick up the trail of a deer that had operated within a vicinity 24hours earlier, a feat no human can accomplish. Now, the trail the deer left is always there. That it cannot be picked by human beings does not nullify the fact that it is always there. Once a being with the facilities to trail it appears, the trail is picked up. The same applies to radio signals. There is constant transmission of radio waves on air but you cannot hook-up to these signals unless you have a signal receptor, like a radio.
This principle applies to discovering the DESIRE of what one’s mission is in the world. The signal for your DESIRE is always on transmission, but you cannot get hooked-up to it until to tune yourself to the dimension where the signal is operating. Other creatures, dogs for example, connect to their dimensions instinctively because they have developed organs that connect them to their dimensions without any intelligent effort. Man however, is a spiritual being. The dimension he operates is the dimension of the spirit. He can rarely get the required obsession needed to galvanize him to pursue and sustain his DESIRE unless he operates in the realm of the spirit. The tragedy of the postmodern world is that man fails to discover his spiritual dimension. The promptings of the spirit in him is drowned by the goings and comings of life.
To connect himself and operate in the dimension where he truly belongs, man requires to shot himself off, intermittently from the hustles and bustles of life. To discover the mission encoded in his DESIRE he has to return to the dimension of the spirit where he belongs. No wonder, Jesus was always struggling to squeeze out time where he can be alone. No wonder, he told his disciples to come out to where they can be by themselves. He understands that one’s true mission can become beclouded or completely drowned in the noise of life. It is therefore, within the condition of solitude that deep calls on deep in the deepest recess of the soul. It is in it also that one’s assignment in life is uncovered in the form of irresistible obsession. It is in it that DESIRE is discovered, sustained and actualized.
