What Do You Want?

The four most confronting words in the English language

---

July 3rd, 2023
Portland, Oregon

It’s getting hotter. People are freaking out. The world has destabilized. We must find solace in the cracks. It is the structure of the economy, we get this. And yet nothing changes. It’s only getting worse. So where do we go from here?

---

“What do you want?”

The four most confronting words in the English language. The ground upon which we manifest. What do you want? Money? You think you want money but you don’t want money. Money is just a conduit.

You want stability.

You want a vacation.

You want a new car or a bigger apartment or to be able to put a downpayment on a house so you’re no longer throwing your life’s work into the void called landlord.

You want security.

You want ease.

You want stability.

You want to know that you will be able to put food on the table tomorrow.

You can’t throw a stone online without hitting a manifestation coach selling tricks on how to become rich. At least in my feed. Social media applications have learned this about me. I’ll watch those videos—at least long enough to teach the algorithm to give me more.

But I’m not watching these videos for tips. I’m watching them to look for holes in their logic and flaws in their worldview: pretty privilege, white privilege, able-bodied privilege.

Privilege. You can’t talk about manifestation without acknowledging privilege.

Or can you?

I feel the same way about “toxic spirituality” as I do about “spiritual psychosis.” I don’t think either one exists. Narcissism exists. Mental health problems exist. But slapping the words “toxic” or “psychosis” on top of “spiritual,” doesn’t that create an oxymoron?

What if spirituality is just spirituality and it can’t be bad?

What if we had to name the specific toxicity at play instead of throwing disparate expressions of behaviour into the same suitcase and calling it the same thing? Do labels and categorization distract us from having real conversations that lead to real solutions?

Sometimes the algorithm shows me manifestation techniques backwards, through others like me. People angry about manifestation culture. People hurt by failure.

I learned about one of the more recent trends, Lucky Girl Syndrome, through women speaking up about how damaging that ideology is—how the belief that “everything is working out in your favour” can harm a person.

Toxic spirituality, they call it.

I don’t believe that spirituality can be toxic. But I see their point. How many times have I fallen on my face? How many times have I failed to manifest my goals? How much has hoping and dreaming hurt me? How has believing that something will work out, only to face the harsh reality of it not working out, made me want to give up and give into the belief that I’m not good enough, never good enough—a wrong, bad, pathetic loser, failure.

What about you?

Have you chased after what you want and have you fucked it up? Have you learned to gaslight yourself, too?

Maybe it’s not meant for me. It’s too hard. I guess I don’t know what I want. It’s not in the cards. I should give up. I don’t know what I want.

How has failure shaped and guided you? Do you give up or do you keep going? Do you second-guess yourself? Do you believe it’s possible to get what you want?

Or does this newsletter confuse you? Do you believe that anything is possible with the right amount of determination, manifestation, therapy…?

Do you always get you want?

Part of having privilege means getting what you want at the expensive of others. Cheap clothes. Cheap chocolate. Cheap anything and everything propped up by globalization and a refusal to include externalities.

Where are the manifestation coaches for collective liberation?

Do you want world peace? Humane political policies? A world without violence?

Do you want a circular economic system backed on the health of people and planet? A home to call your own or just reasonable rent? Do you want to be able to afford to go to the dentist? The therapist? The gym? The Bahamas?

Do you want Love?

Happiness?

Success?

What do you want?

As it becomes more and more expensive to stay alive and thrive in this world, as the wealth gap widens and the economic engine of separation forces more and more people into worsening fear and stress, one paycheque away from losing their place, will “what we want” begin to change? Will our priorities shift?

Have they already?

Maybe the writing is on the wall. Maybe we’re already stepping out of the labels and categories of modernity and building bridges to one another.

I think the old world is falling apart and, in doing so, it’s putting up one hell of a fight. And I think that’s okay. I think that it’s forcing us to see how we got lost in the dream of individuality, the mythology of Other, and the idea that our freedom isn’t attached to one another.

You might not see it yet. You might be scared—and you wouldn’t be alone. I’m scared too. Often. But, in reclaiming what I want, I’m facing that fear; I’m remembering that what I truly want doesn’t exist and never existed within the paradigm of modernity.

I want to move freely, live in community. I want to grow my own food. I want to dance and sing and I want to play: create and dream, explore and innovate. I want to live in a world built on generosity and reciprocity.

Fortunately, that world exists. It’s always been here. What we’re seeing now is the world we built on top of that world crumbling—and the only way out is through the mess.

So tell me. What do you want?

Photos: Antigua, Guatemala. February 2022.