“As much as I want to” is a line I’ve heard one too many times. As much as I want to I can’t bring myself to, as much as I want to there’s just no time, as much as I want to I don’t want to hurt you, as much as I want to I should not, etc.
There really is no saying: “as much as I want to”, because if you had wanted to, you would go ahead and do it. If you didn’t want to, then you would say or show that you don’t want it. There really is no in between I want to and I don’t want to, there’s only confusion, grey areas, “I don’t want to now”, pending decisions, etc.
There isn’t any pseudo-wanting something, it’s either you want it or you don’t. And if you don’t want it then I say, “I don’t want it.” Because when you can bring it to the level of speech, you actually make a decision. But saying “as much as I want to” is like staying silent when someone asks you a question, which is worse than answering it with a no.
I think “as much as I want to” is synonymous to falling short of something. Because you never really want it nor not want it. It’s kind of just…there. It’s kind of like IL Y A. There are no decisions, no convictions. But it is not anything and not nothing because you’re left questioning and convincing yourself that you want or don’t want it – and clearly you would not know since the “As much as I want to”s are getting in the way.
And believe me, this is one of the worst things anyone can say to you or you can say to anyone: As much as I want to, because you’ll never know. You’ll never understand it. You’ll never quite be wanted or unwanted. You are just there.
After saying or hearing an “as much as I want to,” you have to pick yourself up from being just “there.” It’s declaring the fact that you want to be wanted or unwanted, you want to be something. That’s the tricky part. It actually going through the full length of saying, “I want to do this” or even “I just don’t want to do this right now.”
So “as much as I want to” doesn’t really help me in any way. I’ll just stick to I WANT TO.
what if I want to, but I can't? what if there are factors that hinder us from doing that particular thing we want to do? it's that line between intention and action as blogged by someone a few blog posts ago. If Levinas says that it should always be in the level of action, a concrete effort/deed, yet external factors bigger than us stand in the way, then what now? if we can't fight or win against those hindrances to attain what we want... then how do we know when to stop wanting and when to move on?
ReplyDeleteIt's really funny how these were the exact same thoughts i had after a bad breakup. You're right! When someone use lines like "As much as i want to" or anything that makes you question what this person really wants to happen, more often than not, this person doesn't want to or doesn't want it enough. These people are cowards and probably don't know what they want. Or they do but just don't have the courage to do something about it. Whenever I'm at a crossroads about something, I always remind myself what a speaker told us a few years ago. "When you find something you want as badly as you want to breathe, don't ever let it go."
ReplyDeleteGenica Lim (C)