Desire

The verse 32 of chapter 17 of the Holy Quran goes thus,

"And DO NOT APPROACH unlawful sexual intercourse. Indeed, it is ever an immorality, and is evil as a way."

The most obtuse thing about contemporary time, with the encroachment of rational thought and eventual lead-up towards the notion of a de-centred reality is that it renders the profundity behind the simplicity of truth as espoused by religious teachings quite arbitrary and at times, delusional. It is natural then that the tragic flaw of any human being, that ever so endeavors of chronicling these underlying discernible facts stands susceptible to nuanced criticism from his fellow humans, working ever so diligently to sustain the suspended animation or rather, intellectual limbo of their own flawed existence at any cost, weaponizing philosophy to properly undertake this intellectual unseating of the transcendent, as it were. Like Edgar Allan Poe's mini-treatise on the process of analysis at the start of The Murders in the Rue Morgue, I seem to have similarly digressed but in due time, I believe that I shall indeed establish a connection with the rest of my narrative.  

Desire stands the most to gain out of the aforementioned mish-mash of spiraling contradictions. The 'loneliness epidemic' as sensationalized quite insidiously by indulgent trends on social media has spawned its own 'hive-mind' of compromised and subsequently disenfranchised men, eager to attain absolution yet flailing ever so easily over the seductiveness of convenience. The urge to be validated thus is particularly dangerous, it seeks reciprocation which, under the impromptu sociopolitical conventions of gender equality, are not strictly dare one say, owed. For me, the dilemma is thus finding oneself torn between stoic attitude and vulnerability of self-expression (as I type this down, I am increasingly reminded of Ryan Gosling's Officer K staring helplessly at the giant hologram of Ana de Armas' Joy in Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049, after having gone through the wringer, yet ending up battered and wanting. Interestingly enough, that is as of the moment the only sci-fi dystopia that seems most relevant to our time, where emotional sensitivities are now being programmed into chatbots as 'real girls' become swarthy enough for total manipulation; cue here Alex Garland's Ex Machina).

Yet, the essence of desire or by extension, the deadly sin of lust is in its being a mesh of disparate psycho-spiritual feedback loops. These 'loops' are the invisible cords that bind many a man, perpetually hindering him in the ascent to greatness.

 A crude off-hand remark from the fictionalized Armand Bouchart in our final boss fight in Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines (2009) does warrant a mention here: "It is through women that the devil weaves his strongest web." While initially having scoffed it off, I have only found it to be, quite regrettably, true. These feedback loops lie dormant yet even the slightest lingering stare or even the innocent act of initiating a conversation, is susceptible of setting them active, and depending upon the nature of the interaction, charged. The resulting impact is quite disorienting, one finds themselves de-centered and unwillingly yielding of agency to the other party, simultaneously projecting an unconscious demand for reciprocation which in most cases might not register (all other factors remaining constant, that is). The more one yields their agency, the stronger the feedback loop gets, until it becomes notoriously all-consuming, to the point of necessitating drastic action in response to a growing oppressive mental hyper-reality that on its own requires utmost reconciliation at all costs, making a beast out of the same man who most likely has made a goddess out of the woman a.k.a. the object of his unruly desire.

To conclude, it is the oscillating pendulum (Poe's version) of the psycho-spiritual feedback loop, which takes immense pleasure in gratuitous violence as it hacks off more and more of one's self-control, letting them succumb to the chaos of gratification while confining them to the status of lesser man. 

All of this can be avoided however, if one chooses the policy of 'no approach' as capitalized above even to their own detriment, especially if the alternative is quite conveniently soul-consuming.

"I dare do all that may become a man; who dares more is none." (Shakespeare's Macbeth)