Because We Want To
Follow the chain: My girlfriend wants to see the first episode of the new Doctor Who. At the beginning of the episode I find myself wondering about how Billie Piper made the transition from pop star to actress. That reminded me I wanted to put some new music on my PDA. Since that was what reminded me I included some Billie Piper in the mix. Several days later the mp3 comes up in the play list as I’m headed home. It makes me smile. But my mind abhors a lack of deep thought so I begin to ponder the lyrics of a long forgotten pop song from the UK.
So with all that background you can understand how I come to say the following…
I was thinking about the phrase ‘because we want to’ the other day. As a child I found it frustrating because it was a non-answer. It wasn’t a reason or a cause. I found the one-word response “because” a bit more frustrating for the same reason. I also suspect this phrase (’because we/I want to’) vexes parents and babysitters for similar reasons.
But as I get older I find that in certain situations it is the perfect answer. Something to strive for.
I swear I’m not crazy.
Consider the last time you had the dreaded “what do you wanna do?” v. “I dunno, what do you wanna do?” debate.
As we get older we, or at least the more responsible among us, become obsessed with what we CAN do or what we SHOULD do. What’s expected of us, what can we afford, what has the most utility becomes the focus to the point that we lose touch of what we really want for completely selfish reasons.
When was the last time you did something just because you wanted to and no other reason? It would be nice if we could find a cost-free way to do one thing every day simply because we want to. How else are we to stay in touch with ourselves?
What more pure expression of self could there be than doing something because we want to?
And that’s The Wørd.
