Is this desire?

In the age of algorithms and AI minds, it is easy to want nothing more than what you are told.

There's a childhood rhyme my daughter's dance teacher likes to recite:

𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑢𝑝𝑠𝑒𝑡

I hate it. And that's the feed.

Owning my desire preserves my humanity.

Desire is propulsive. To want something confers an identity; to pursue a want makes you a certain person through the journeys it inspires.

That might be desire for a person, or to be a person; for a place, an outcome, an object, a state of being.

It doesn't matter.

To want defines us. To desire, even in a way that is non-attached, is to be a resolutely three-dimensional human, to become a protagonist in your own story.

To hand over the engine of your wants to another, or a machine, is a sin, it's chaotic free will.

To be desireless is to relinquish your right, and in that passivity, die a little.