Eric and I were watching one of those reality home building shows today; a couple had worked hard, had long and successful careers, and were now building their dream home, on their dream plot of land.

Only the land they chose was the top of a cliff, overhanging the ocean, with sandy earth that was sliding away. When the engineer came to make a first assessment, he told them the dangers and difficulties of building there – the erosion was so pervasive, extreme measures would need to be taken to keep it at bay, and even then, the house was unlikely to make it more than a few decades before sliding into the ocean.

Knowing the dangers, knowing the effort, knowing the risk, the couple chose to build anyway: This was the spot they imagined spending their golden years, a place they had vacationed many times, that they had built their fantasy retirement around. They simply couldn’t give it up, they figured it would remain standing till at least the end of their lives. And so, the house building project began. Afterall, from imagination springs hope eternal.

The trials and tribulations were countless. First, a special sea wall had to be built out of huge boulders to keep the erosion at bay – only the first big storm threatened to sweep away the wall, and the couple had to go out in the storm and try to secure the boulders with netting.  Then there were issues getting government permits for the home and lawyers had to get involved. Then there were issues getting building materials up the cliff and a new road had to be built. The costs became so high that the husband had to return to work in order to afford completing the home. Only work was in the city hours away, so the commute was unsustainable, and the husband decided to build his own business, from scratch, so he could work from home. Then there were fights between husband and wife about materials and layout and design. All this before a house was even built.

All that stress for a house. As I watched them build, heard their story, all I could think is, “not fucking worth it.” For 50 minutes, of the hour-long show, I just kept muttering under my breath, “So, so, so not worth it. They are being idiots.”

But then, in the end, they showed the home all done and it was stunningly beautiful. The narrator asked the couple if the years of stress building it had been worth it, and without hesitation they said “yes.” Even I, suddenly forgetting the last 50 minutes worth of vicarious stress, thought “Yes! Worth it.” Suddenly something I had been contemplating for years became very clear to me – THIS IS HOW DESIRE FOOLS ME.

Years ago, I had been flipping through a calendar from the Wat with quotes from LP Thoon. One of them had really haunted me; I can’t remember word for word, but the sentiment was, “can you identify how desire fools you?”

As this finished, beautiful house, flashed across my TV, I saw I was tempted by a single moment in time. My mind seized upon that glorious, peak house moment, and the siren song of desire drowned out all the thoughts of the eroding coastline, or the struggles to build, or the coming out of retirement, or the stress of potentially losing the home in old age, or its final future resting place at the bottom of the sea.

Desire tricks me through the dark powers of my imagination. My imagination, that clings to/hopes for a still picture, a particular moment in time. An imagination that lulls me into forgetting the past, and ignoring the future, with the false promise of achieving that peak moment, and keeping it forever, or at least for a duration that satisfies me. An imagination, that minimizes suffering; or makes me think, “I am special, I can magically avoid the suffering I watch others endure”; or that, even if I can’t avoid suffering altogether, it will be measured, on my terms, an acceptable and ‘fair’ trade-off for that beautiful, perfect peak.

I, a slave to my desires, cycle through nightmares of effort, stress, risk and loss hoping to achieve, and hold onto, my dreams. Ignoring the reality of a world were everything, always, changes.