Thursday Post11-13-08

Desire

All human activity is prompted by desire.
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Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) British logician and philosopher.

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.
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Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) American speaker and motivational writer.

Irvine, William B. On Desire: Why We Want What We Want. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2006.

Since 1983 William Irvine has taught at the Wright State University College of Liberal Arts' Philosophy Department. He received his B.A. in Mathematics and Philosophy from University of Michigan and achieved an M.A. and Ph.D. at UCLA. In this book Irvine explores the psychological, scientific, and religious aspects of our impulses, wants, and needs; where they originate and how we might achieve them. This includes looking at thoughts by writers like Seneca, Tolstoy, and Freud, and the teachings of Buddhists, Hindus, the Amish, Shakers, Catholic saints, ancient Greek, Roman, and modern European philosophers. Irvine also looks at the modern science perspective--the physical occurrences in the brain when we desire something as well as the evolution of certain desires in animals and advances a new theory about how the ability to desire developed. He implies that when we started to desire, we were "programmed" to desire some things over others. Irvine has also written A Guide to the Good Life {the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy}, The Politics of Parenting, Doing Right By Children, and others.

Desire is a key component of my work. The people I work with have desires in their life that have been translated into their desire to have that represented in some way on their skin. I had a desire to work with this because I have had similar desires as they, and in my seeking to understand the origin of theirs, I gain perspective on the origin of mine.