Tragic Needs

I'm a little full of myself, so here's a term I've coined. Never you mind that it sounds like a romantic comedy staring Hugh Grant and Meg Ryan.

Tragic needs are more difficult to obtain the more you need them. So the very fact that you need something makes it almost impossible for you to have it. If all you have is tragic needs, then you live a tragic life, because you can never have what you most need. That's the second most tragic sounding predicament I can think of. The first is being unable to obtain what you most want only because the very person you are precludes it. For example, you're really good at rallying the Scottish troops, so even though all you want is to have a farm and raise a family, you cast yourself in the leading role of an enjoyable though wildly historically inaccurate movie and get disemboweled.

Right, back to the point at hand. Here are some examples.

• Sleep to many an insomniac. It's 5am, and you just REALLY REALLY need to get some sleep, so of course you can't because you're too worried about it.
• A good deal. The number one way to get a good deal is to not need whatever you're dealing for in the first place.
• Affection. This one's a little trickier, but the variety I experience most often. You need somebody to like you, or you need physical affection from somebody. The more you need it, the more neurotic and weird you are, and the less lovable you become. How miserable.

So what do you do about tragic needs? Well, I think the first step is naming the beast. Then you can start to figure out what comes next. I imagine it will, ironically and tragically, involve getting yourself to a place where you just don't need it in the first place.

It's 5am and you can't get to sleep. You say, "Fuck it," get up, move to the couch, read a book, and admit you may or may not get any sleep. You fall asleep.

The cute girl is all you ever wanted in the world. You ignore the cute girl and start a band. You find three even cuter girls that like you. You hang out with your girl, but you tease her, flirt with her, and play hard to get. You get around to asking her out and you're irresistible.

Now this idea is almost certainly out to lunch, or at most, a very incomplete piece of what it is to desire something. Still, when something you need is driving you insane, consider whether it's a tragic need, and let me know how it works out.