The Immoral Drive

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Is desire immoral?

When I was young, I slept around a lot. Many women. Many short-lived pleasures.

Then came burnout, followed by mania. I drifted further and further away from the path I thought I was on.

But the drive never disappeared.

For a long time, I believed I simply had a stronger sex drive than most people. Even so, I never wanted to follow it blindly.

Then came years of depression.

Ironically, it was the suggestion to join a Filipino dating site that helped pull me out of that darkness. I traveled to the Philippines. It was a good time in my life. For a while, I even started thinking about having children again.

My family was against it. After everything that had happened during my psychosis, they had their reasons.

Perhaps they were right.

I already have a daughter with a serious kidney disease. Today, I can be there for her in a way I might not have been otherwise.

And yet, the drive is still there.

There were moments when I considered leaving everything behind. But those thoughts eventually faded.

My restless desire.

It often feels as if I live between Yin and Yang.

My desires push me forward, while my thoughts tell me to slow down. Many people may simply follow their impulses. I was raised differently.

So I keep asking myself: What is the right way to live with this part of myself?

Sometimes it feels like a struggle against my own nature — a constant tension between desire and responsibility, between Yin and Yang.

In the end, depression often catches up with me again. It has become my constant companion.

Maybe it is a conflict between how I was raised and what I instinctively want. Maybe it is the tension between reason and desire.

I don’t know.

So I try to endure it like a Buddhist monk, allowing life to unfold as it will.

The voices in my head. The constant weighing of possibilities. Everyday life.

I think, in the end, we all hope for the best possible outcome.

Perhaps that is the old idea of heaven still living somewhere inside me — the belief that there is a right path, even when I cannot see it.

I don’t know how else to explain it.