68. What We Really Long For

We tend to talk about desire as if we already know what it is. More closeness, more passion, more sex.

When people say they miss sex, though, they aren’t always talking about it. Sometimes they miss feeling wanted. Sometimes they miss feeling free. Sometimes they miss a version of themselves that felt more awake to their own life.

In this chapter of Collecting Maps, I explore what actually lives underneath desire, why longing rises and fades, and how safety, stress, resentment and the nervous system can quietly shape how much we want.

Desire is not only an accelerator. It also has brakes.

So perhaps the question isn’t simply how to want more.

Maybe it’s what is quietly pressing the brakes, what has gone silent inside us, and what our longing has been trying to tell us all along.

Not only what do I desire?

But when did I stop feeling alive, and what would it take to come back?