https://aeon.co/essays/deny-and-become-the-radical-ethos-of-negative-capability
Among the traps of the mind, there is preoccupation with the past (including attachment to intrusive memories) and preoccupation with the future (including continual desire). By definition, these lures are incompatible with being in the moment. We must offload this excess baggage to glimpse what we are and what we might become.0
I used to wonder why desire was regarded as a bad thing in Buddhism.After all to be without any desire might be a symptom of deep depression..
But later I came to realise that if we are too focussed on our desire for one person or one object or one feeling that this sharp focus would prevent one from perceiving many other things.So perhaps it’s a change of focus that is intended.I can imagine that if you desire one person who may not be interested then you miss seeing all the other people near you.
Sometimes we have to use a narrow focus to do a task.In mathematics you’d expect a narrow focus but the reason why stopping and going for a walk works is that it widens your focus; that’s my point of view.
I was in the kitchen washing up one day when I kept getting lines suitable for sonnets coming into my mind.I haad just written one sonnet so I then wrote two more.
I had a realisation that if one learns a certain form,technique or skill then that will act like a fishing net to draw up material from the depths of the mind which wants to be expressed.There definitely is desire in these sentences which wish to be spoken.. to communicate.
Another example of the desires of the mind is shown by the following example.I was feeling extremely distressed one day and began writing a sonnet in which I intended to say something very unpleasant but after writing one and a half stanzas I realised that this other good part of my mind did not wish me to write something cruel or angry… so I changed direction and made it quite different.
And conversely I once had very unkind thoughts coming into my mind about someone who had hurt me profoundly and was unable to say anything to help me afterwards… or was unable to apologise but I told myself that I did not agree with these bad thoughts and would not allow them to make me do something against my own moral code.However I felt the temptation strongly and indeed I had been used wrongly by someone.
So I can see different selves in me. Something very good and something bad… then me, in between them!
How my heart sings 