Haunted by Illusion: Desire, Drive, and the Mind

What do you truly want in life?

It’s a question that often feels impossible because what we want changes constantly. Perhaps, wanting itself is an illusion. Yet, it is through wanting that we feel a sense of direction, a reason to act. Achieving goals may not carry inherent meaning, but the pursuit—the act of striving—gives our lives shape. In this sense, the utility of a goal is the purpose it provides.

Desire, Illusion, and the Mind

Life is energy—flowing in degrees from strength to weakness, goodness to evil, beauty to ugliness. We exist within this spectrum. To live well, we can optimize our energy at a high-frequency level, maintaining steadiness, and channeling it toward what we deem meaningful.

Yet the outcomes of our efforts—success, recognition, wealth—are illusions created by the mind. The evil cannot exist until we perceive it as such. Similarly, achievement has no intrinsic meaning until we give it meaning.

Attachment to outcomes leads to unnecessary suffering. Believing we can fully control the outcome is itself a sheer illusion. The drive inside us will change things, yes, but attachment makes us feel pain whenever reality strays from our expectations. In other words, we are haunted—not by the world, but by our own mind.

The Drive Is Real

The paradox is simple: the drive itself is real, the outcome is not. We are living beings, endowed with energy and will. Our consciousness does not fully control these wills; yet, these wills can align or conflict with one another. Listening to yourself, tuning into your inner drives, is crucial.

Even though we cannot choose who we are entirely, we can act through the energy we possess. Striving, creating, improving—these are the real sources of purpose. Outcomes are secondary, bonus illusions. The act of giving life to our purposes transforms hollowness into meaning.

Flow and Freedom

There are moments when we lose ourselves in something else—playing games, thinking deeply, or focusing entirely on an activity. In these moments, the mind feels disconnected from the body, existing in another realm. This can be beneficial, as it allows immersion and clarity. But it can also become escape, a way to avoid confronting the illusions we carry.

Freedom, then, is not the absence of desire, but the ability to act without being enslaved by outcomes. The goal is not to eliminate illusion, but to maintain awareness and stability while pouring energy into meaningful action.

Reflection

• Wanting is hollow, but it structures life.
• Outcomes are illusions; attachment to them is suffering.
• The drive is real; energy is the true currency of life.
• Consciousness observes, but does not command. Listening to the self is crucial.
• Freedom arises not from achieving all you desire, but from acting fully without being haunted by the mind’s illusions.

Our lives are haunted not by the world, but by the illusions we create. The challenge is to move, strive, and give energy meaning, while remaining aware that outcomes are never fully ours. In doing so, suffering diminishes, and the act of living becomes its own reward.