For a long time, I’ve looked at the basic formula that I’ve been taught is at the core of every good story: Protagonist needs/wants XX and meets with obstacles when they try to attain it.

The obstacle part of this equation is what’s been promoted most to me: the idea that the essence of story is trouble.

I reject this.

I’ve absorbed this lesson and passed it on—through the stories I’ve written, through the classrooms where I’ve taught students about the history of stories, about how to create their own — and through the stories I’ve told myself about myself.

I look at the equation now — and I propose a new one.

What I wish to see at the core essence of story isn’t trouble. 

It is desire.

I have many desires. I desire a cabin in the woods on a mountain, for example. I desire to walk through the desert on a cool night and come across the full moon against the pink rocks. I desire great sex with someone I love in the ocean at night. I desire to be free with my words and for my words to reach you. I desire financial ease. I desire a greenhouse. I desire a pain-free existence. I desire to laugh bigly. I desire to be naked and moonbathe on the rooftop and feel the light. I desire to see others and be seen as if I am made of magic. I desire to dance wildly around a vast pit of fire. I desire a future in which our ancestors look back at us and, boggled by war, by assaults against each other and the earth, take pity on our age.

Standing and hovering above my right shoulder, peeking at this page, is my desire to write from the place of desire rather than trouble.

A future where there’s less trouble

Where humans can shed the bullshit narrative of war

Of separation 

of hierarchy

Where humans desire to tend rather than own.

In this future, trouble isn’t confused with the axis of meaning—

Either in storytelling or in living.

I desire a future where we can name what we need, what we desire —

Nakedly, fearlessly, and to faces soft between listening ears.