Excerpt from the novel-in-progress Desire Without Expectation

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I pause as we both mull this over. Just then a third person enters the room. Unlike either of us, she begins by immediately introducing herself. Her name is Alfreda. I say “Hello Alfreda,” but for some reason don’t offer up my name in return and neither does my companion on the other side of the circle, who instead says “Are you here to lead the workshop?” Unsurprisingly, Alfreda is not here to lead the workshop, but nonetheless finds a seat and joins us in the circle.

Alfreda apologizes for being late and explains the reason is that the previous workshop she’d attended ran over. She’s still trying to get her head around it all. It really stressed her out. The reason it ran over was the discussion at the end had transformed into a rather heated argument, stopping just short of physical violence, which I found surprising. Alfreda worried that this session might also turn violent and we both assured her it seemed unlikely.

Without prompting, Alfreda goes on to describe the nature of the group argument. They were discussing stories. How important stories were for creating social change. And there seemed to be a general agreement in the room that stories were important. That stories shaped the way people think and changing people’s underlying assumptions was of the upmost importance.

But then someone said that, overall, this discussion was completely pissing them off. That all this emphasis on changing the stories that were the basis of our cultural norms were okay as far as they went, but in his opinion didn’t go anywhere near far enough. Because on top of all that we needed to blow up oil pipelines, assassinate fossil fuel CEOs and board members, blockade shipping ports, burn down police stations and break open prisons, and generally attack all physical infrastructure currently enforcing the status quo. Only then would there be enough room for the new stories and ways of thinking that seemed so important to everyone in this room. He took an aggressive approach to making these points, yet he was also concise, which was appreciated.

The first responses to his outburst were conciliatory. Of course one approach did not preclude the other. All approaches were necessary. This particular workshop focused on using stories to create change. If he wanted to lead one, or many, workshops that focused on strategies for direct action, he was both welcome and invited to do so.

All of this only made him angrier. Didn’t we all realize that the time for idle talk was done.

Someone replied that we could assassinate all the CEO’s we wanted, there would always be new assholes to take their place. If we didn’t change people’s stories, people’s understanding of the world, change them to the extent that people no longer wanted to be CEOs of anything, we would never be able to break the cycle.

“No,” the angry man shot back, “you don’t understand. It’s too late for all that. Everything’s collapsing. People won’t be able to become CEOs because all multinational corporations will have collapsed. You can’t become a CEO of a corporation that no longer exists. But we need to stop them before they drag everything else down with them.”

The arguments against such clear-eyed alarmism also grew more heated and soon half the room was working to shout him down. Alfreda didn’t actually stay to the end, doesn’t know the full end of the story, slipped out when everyone was yelling. In general, her nervous system was not able to withstand that level of heated conflict.

There was a pause as I worked to process everything she’d just told us. This current session seemed much quieter than the one Alfreda recounted. It seemed there were many different kinds of activities. Alfreda did seem shaken. I wondered if I would have been shaken if I had been there. In general, I found many difficult situations fairly manageable, while also finding it difficult to predict which reasonable situations I might find challenging. I was rarely shy in the face of conflict, but nonetheless often avoided it. I tried to imagine myself blowing up a pipeline or setting a police station on fire. It was nice to imagine, but hard to believe I would have the nerve to actually do so. Maybe in the future that could change.

Alfreda said: “So can someone tell me about Voting For The Thing You Don’t Want?” Neither of us could. So, following our previous pattern, we asked Alfreda what she thought it meant. She didn’t hesitate: “People now live bombarded by false desires. Whatever you think you want is likely not going to work. I’m not just talking about consumerism. On every level we want what we don’t want and that’s what we get. I think both of you know what I mean.”

We both agreed that we knew what she meant. It was something about being a person. When you were a person you didn’t just make yourself. You were also made by your environment. And our environments were giving us false flags from the moment we were born.

This session was scheduled for one hour and my companion on the other side of the circle now mentioned the hour was almost up. Most of the activities were allotted two or three hours, but for some reason this one was shorter. Maybe the thing we were supposed to vote for, that we didn’t want, was a longer session. We politely said our goodbyes and a strange emptiness overcame me as I retraced my steps on the way back to my room. I now knew a little bit more about this place and, at the same time, also knew less than ever.



[I'm gradually realizing that Desire Without Expectation might be the final part of a planned trilogy based loosely around questions concerning the desire for utopia.]



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