What Do I Want

‘What do I want?’ seems a simple question, but in an age of austerity it’s much harder to answer than it first seems. What I want can be defined as much by what society tells me to want – what I want to wear, what I want my career path to look like, what objects (‘stuff’) I covet – as much as it is by my own desires, formed by experience and thought and unique outlook. What I want becomes a hodge-podge of things that attract me and outlook-forming wishes that are part of what makes me who I am.

There is a difference between ambitions, these things that we strive for and work to make happen, and wanting something to be our own or to be different. We know the difference between need vs want, but do we need to learn the difference between want and desire? We should also acknowledge that there’s a difference between being entitled to something and wanting it: I think everyone should be entitled to an education, to healthcare, and to safety, and yet people in this country and all over the world are fighting for these whilst I am moaning about stuff. And I feel guilt for that. Maybe I’m a bleeding heart liberal SJW snowflake (I definitely am), but there are a lot of things that I am asking for that are branded selfish or entitled, or told I have to work for, that with the best will in the world are not going to change if I move jobs or move house or change any one thing in my life. And I think for a lot of the people I know there is this same attitude – why is the world immovably structured in a certain way, one which seems to hold our wants against us and dismiss them along with us? For our heartfelt desires and ambitions, we are happy to work incredibly hard to beat those stacked odds (think of Helen Sharman learning Russian or Ruth Bader Ginsberg attending both hers and her husband’s classes), but for things we want we tend to just succumb to the desire without analysing it or dwell on it, move on, accept that it’s out of our control. Of course some of my ‘wants’ are shiny things that mean nothing – aren’t yours? – but some also would require sweeping social changes that, because I’m working on my desires, I don’t have time to action.

I get really annoyed when people call me a millennial – it’s reductive to suggest that an entire generation can behave in the same way or be in the same position, and even people I love have used it as a barb with the intent of placing a wedge between us to align me more with the 18-year-olds I work with than my 30-something peers. But I think as we the ‘millennial’ generation have grown up in both an age of austerity and an age of technology, it’s much easier for us to envisage what we want in terms of a nuanced dialectic than it has been for previous generations.

It’s not as important that I own a cat as it is that I get a postgraduate degree, and I don’t struggle with not owning a cat daily – thus, it is neither a need or a desire, but a want. Still, though, the cat stands as a placeholder for a meaningful social change: I, as a renter, have no rights, and, due to structural inequality, whole swathes of society (young people, people of colour, carers) share that disenfranchisement, and cannot own pets, have long-term housing security or pass the asset on to their children like the majority of our lawmakers. When couched in those terms, we can see that what can be painted as a simple ‘want’ is part of a much more complex societal structure which removes the agency of a large group of people. Is my ‘want’, then, unreasonable? Demanding? Entitled? Sure, some of my ‘wants’ are essentially choices: if I worked more hours, I could buy cute shoes, and those ‘wants’ could be easily sated. If I moved house, would I suddenly be able to own a cat or know what I’ll be paying in five years? The structure keeping me from fulfilling the ‘want’ would remain in place. Although theirs may be different to mine, many other millennials are struggling with need vs want vs desire, and I think that by separating our ‘wants’ into two columns – structural problems and fripperies – we can get a hold of not only the kind of world we want to live in, but what we as individuals actually want.

So. Here is the great list of whiny, selfish millennial demands; one is my list of things that ought to be possible but are not because the world is a dark and terrible place, and the other are things that I can categorically go without forever. Let it be said that I understand that some are unreasonable and complex demands which require more effort in changing the system than I am willing to put in to these specific actions and some are deeply unnecessary things that would just be nice. Let it also be said, though, that I don’t quite understand why that means they’re stupid to want – and that I do know the difference between the two kinds of ‘want’.

• Shoes from Irregular Choice
• My roots touched up, maybe even my hair dyed another colour
• A board game night with friends, and a day spent cooking for them
• To buy my boyfriend fancy doughnuts so he knows how much I think of him

• I want to not be tired all the time. I want to be sufficiently not tired to go for drinks with my friends/colleagues, see friends on a weekend, or watch a film with my boyfriend without feeling guilty about neglecting my work.
• I want an end to inequality, even if it does not ‘directly benefit me’ (how could living in a better world not be beneficial to everyone in that world, though?) I want economic equality, race equality, equality for all genders and sexualities and professions and abilities, and first I want that to not be a surprising or naïve thing to say.
• I want a cat. I want a cat and it to not get me thrown out of my house. I want to name it Eric Hobsclawm and be able to go home to a small furry creature I can shower in love.
• I want to read books, and watch films with pretty ladies in. I want to listen to other people tell me about books and films and programmes and games that make them happy, and I want everything to be considered a valuable cultural pursuit.
• I want a part-time job that will pay my rent. I am not asking to live like a king. I just want enough money to pay for my half of a little flat in Clapton and maybe eat every day without asking my parents for money whilst I work on my MA (and ideally I’d like to not feel guilty about gentrifying the area, which I definitely am).
• I want Jazz FM to play jazz records all the time instead of having adverts or interviews with business leaders or the news (which is ALWAYS about Brexit, which always makes me sad).
• I want Lana del Rey to tour the UK again. I want Nicola Roberts to make a second solo album. I want singles with B-sides to be a thing again.
• I want to not have to hand in a print version of my uni essays.
• I want a new coat where the sleeves aren’t too short and trousers with pockets I can keep my iPod in whilst I walk or get the bus. I want tights in a variety of skin tones to be easily available so that I don’t look like I’ve spilled tea on my legs.
• I want the contraceptive implant I was on before to be available on the NHS again. I want to be able to afford the healthcare I need, including therapy.
• I want to wear jeans and trainers to work. No joke, librarianship involves heavy lifting and moving around and cataloguing and it’s just not practical in chinos that pinch when you bend down or shoes that don’t have support. I want to be able to buy trainers that are quality, reasonably priced and not made by child labour in Bangladesh or Vietnam.
• I want daylight savings to be abolished. Fucking stupid idea.

Thank-you for your time. Please share your unreasonable wants, or the desires that you’re working towards, with me.

To-Do:

• Eat the food from in my fridge / freezer.
• Plan next essay and contact the person who taught whatever topic I pick.
• Read the article sent to me by Professor In My Field he very kindly sent me.

Today’s Culture:

• Using my Filofax to reach my full potential. And keep track of all the symptoms of my mental health.
• Reading about Ruskin as it’s his 2nd centenary this year.
• Priyamvada Gopal’s twitter rant about Jordan Peterson being invited to her place of work. N O B O D Y A S K E D F O R T H I S.