What if I told you that you were about to learn the secret to life? What if I told you this secret was hardly a secret at all? What if I said that you’re probably experiencing it right now, reading this, because, for whatever reason, you chose to? I mean, I just promised you the secret to life. I guess that’s probably the reason.
The Oxford dictionary describes an “urge” as “a strong desire or impulse.” Close your eyes. Think of an urge. The urge to do what your computer screen tells you is a good place to start. Whatever yours is (the funny ones of you will remark something about the “feminine urge”), I raise you the urge to smile, the urge to feel joy, the urge to experience pleasure. Alongside the most basic human urges; eat, sleep, or pee, or all the former simultaneously; we are also in constant pursuit of life’s most principal urge: satisfaction.
Have you ever heard the saying “life in small steps”? Presumably not; I just made it in an attempt to pack some one thousand inspirational quotes set atop a photo of a Hawaii sunset into one sweet, concise little package. The urge to make sense of large things with small words.
These small steps are even more minuscule than one might think. The average Joe may consider making the bed in the morning a small step. But between you and me— remember, this is the secret to life we’re talking about here— what if that step was to simply indulge in a pointless urge? The ever-sought-after gratification of life can be a series of small satisfactions; perhaps this is the meaning of instant gratification. To pick a flower that belongs to no one, to say a funny word to see how it feels, to chew it in your mouth (mine is corpulent, it means “fat”), to pick up something shiny on the ground just to realize it is a candy wrapper. Observe the texture of something inedible (and sanitary) by putting it in your mouth. Tell yourself a made-up story to find what you imagine as the ending. Spin around and around in your room to experience the fleeting high of being dizzy without having the spins. Does it feel good? The urge to feel something, sometimes anything. And what is life but a series of feelings, both emotional and physical, that contribute to your unique perception?
There’s this corpulent rumor that satisfaction must come at the price of some completed action. The end of a work day, the last bite of a meal. Think of satisfaction as a result of starting something. A silly game, an aimless trot, a well-read article such as this one. The contentedness lies within the simple satisfaction of feeling, sensing, of experience.
And there you have it. My secret to life – the urge for satisfaction. The urge to write this for you. And the urge for you to read it until the very end.
Words by Mandy Olivieri.
Graphic by Fai Mccurdy.