Years and Years of Yearning by Chloe Hammond

At the core of human evolution is desire. Something that is indescribable and almost unattainable, until you find yourself entirely caught up in that one person, place, or thing. I used to compare the feeling that only an exclusive group of otherwise ordinary people really had the privilege of describing, or something close to, the complete serenity I felt as I watched the sun set over the water.

I can vividly remember floating in the ocean at Moreton Island as it was nearing the end of summer break. I was patiently waiting for my friend, who was out canoeing past the wave break, to come back to shore. We were in the peak of our teenage years – rage, rebellion, restlessness. I thought it was ironic that I craved anything but that damned stereotype people continously expected from me.

The sun was strong that day, but as each hour passed by, it seemed to retreat behind growing clouds, playing a shy, docile game of hide-and-seek with the sky as it gently lowered itself towards the water. The same supportive feeling of the water holding my weight, paired with a-million-and-one iridescent sparkles across the surface until the water meets the horizon, and the sky paints itself with soft hues of baby pinks and mellow yellows. I imagine it like that – but ten times greater.

That is not to say I place desire in this emotional, physical, or intellectual sense on some great pedestal of praise, but it just seems so out of reach, like it is on the highest shelf in a supermarket, but I am only five-foot-two (even on my tippy-toes).I catch pieces of these emotions on the faces of elderly couples holding hands on the train, new and clueless parents at cafes on Sundays or that mid- 40s married couple surrendering their modesty to embrace in a little PDA at the school fair.

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In our current world, the present moment will never fail to impact the future. Our past decisions and the pure permanence of history itself, have determined who we are and more importantly, who we want to be. We are constantly longing for contentment in a world full of ambition, and I think ambition is closely related to greed.

There, I said it. Greed. I think that word has such a negative connotation attributed to it, for something that empowers people to plan better, do better, be better. So often it is thought of as eating too much cake or taking anything more than your fair share, but what is so wrong about wanting more? The line between living an extraordinary life and being relatively content is easily discernible. By this definition of ‘fair’, when one travels overseas, gets a new job, or tries a new restaurant, maybe they should only experience it once.

I guess in a similar sense, when I was accepted into my undergraduate degree, it was something I had longed for. Sure, a different idea of success and desire, but the very philosophy that whatever can be imagined in the mind’s eye can be achievable, was now tangible. This law of attraction was universally present, and I had secured my ideal finished product, or so I thought. There I stood, with exactly what I wanted, but not without that same need to combat any incompleteness. Perhaps I am ordinarily ambitious, or just pathetically greedy.

I recall my high school teachers prattling on and on about ‘doing your best’ and ‘trying your hardest’ but that was counterintuitively paired with weaker remarks of ‘your final grade doesn’t determine who you are.’ Whilst this is all undoubtedly true, I found it strange that we worked so hard for a number that, ultimately did not matter once we got what we wanted. A hamster wheel.

Now, three years deep, I constantly remind myself, ‘This is everything that you wanted’. Stepping up from that temporary childhood dream to drafting a more mature manifestation has been challenging and weirdly unmotivating. I think I was so happy to receive that acceptance letter, and although I could confidently write my next goal in freshly laid wet cement, I question if it is truly different from that superficially impermanent goal of my past, and it makes me wonder; will I ever be satisfied?