notes

I worry about being evil → what is the correct ethic? → what do I want? → when I think I want to be "good", what I really want is respect from people around me (this desire for social approval seems hard-wired), and also not to be punished by having various desires taken away..

I identified various desires, most of which are standard, but a few new things for me:

• the idea that different desires have different extents for pleasure and pain, for instance, the desire for air ranges from extremely uncomfortable if I don't have it, to essentially neutral if I do, whereas the desire for sex ranges from a little uncomfortable (though persistent) if I don't have it, to extremely pleasurable if I do have it.
• sights and sounds in themselves can be somewhat pleasurable, but they can be extremely pleasurable in the form of art and music, but that pleasure seems to tap into other things, beyond the pleasure intrinsic to the sight or sound
• I'm not sure what the raw desires around learning and progress are, but I think two of them are: 1) a desire to realize things I imagine, and 2) a desire to get new input to process

I've been trying a meditation where I try to clear my mind and simply count my breaths. However, thoughts often intrude, but these thoughts are often good, which is why I'm distracted from counting my breaths, so I'm using this as a technique to think.. I'll try to clear my mind until the next idea presents itself, and then I write that down.