THE WARNING TRACK

Clayton Kershaw: "A line drive to the warning track on one pitch, I'll take that over a strikeout any day."

I recently went through my ten-year ritual of buying a car. The anticipation was exciting; the search was stressful but enjoyable. Like most large purchases, we decided on a reasonable price range, browsed within it, and inevitably fell in love with something at the upper limit. We sat with the salesman, negotiated, and shook hands. You would think that spending so much money on something I genuinely wanted would make me the happiest guy in Rhode Island. But, if I’m honest, I didn’t feel much different.

Someone might say it just wasn’t the right car—that the right object would have changed everything. But most of us know that’s not true. We may feel a brief spark of pleasure, but not any sustained joy. Why? Because the fantasy surrounding the object disappears the moment we possess it.
What can sustain real contentment, however, is understanding the structure of desire—learning how it deceives us. Once we grasp this structure deeply, we gain the ability to enjoy the present rather than being manipulated by promises of future satisfaction. The one who inherently understands this structure can ever-sustain their enjoyment.

So I begin with a warning: satisfaction does not come from gaining things.
Everyone knows this. And yet we all behave as if buying the house, the car, or the jewelry will finally fulfill us. Every time. Why? Because we misunderstand how enjoyment works. We don’t see the structure of Desire, and we confuse it with something far simpler: Demand.
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Some things we “desire” are actually Demands—needs tied to survival, like food and drink. Demand can be satisfied by obtaining an object. A hungry baby gulps, burps, and smiles—that’s Demand fulfilled. But the moment a need moves beyond necessity, it enters the realm of Desire, and if we don’t understand Desire’s structure, dissatisfaction sets in, even when it appears we get what we want. This is the moment where others—especially those who understand Desire—gain power over us.

Because some objects satisfy Demand, we imagine an object must also exist that can satisfy Desire. We are promised this everywhere. But Desire is more complicated: it points not to a real object, but to an imaginary, idealized object shaped by what we imagine others desire. A useful name for this is the Sacred Object.

The Sacred Object is built by what we imagine other’s wanting—cars, houses, jewelry, status, beauty, youth, success. The greater the sacrifice required to obtain it, the more valuable it seems. And our culture exploits this structure relentlessly. Advertising is one of its most sophisticated tools. It is no coincidence that the father of public relations, Edward Bernays—Sigmund Freud’s nephew—used psychology to engineer mass desire. As he famously said: “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it?”

The Sacred Object promises to fill an inner lack that began when we first became separate subjects—when the “oceanic oneness” with the mother ended. That lack stays with us for life, taking the shape of frustration, alienation, brokenness, or incompleteness. We seek to heal it. The Sacred Object promises to heal it. It never does. This is because in order to be a subject, in order to participate in the world, a gap is required, we must be a part and apart from it. And, therefore, the Sacred Object does not exist.

To understand how Desire traps us, in the non-existence of and inability to obtain the Sacred Object, we must explore how its two main components– Object of Desire (OoD) and the Object Cause of Desire (OCoD) – work together. Desire requires something we want (OoD) and a barrier that keeps it out of reach (OCoD). The barrier can be money, distance, wrapping paper—anything that maintains the “gap” between us and the object. Once the object is obtained, that gap collapses, and Desire collapses with it—leaving eventual boredom or melancholy.

This is why the “cures” for this alienation like commodities, self-help, drugs, and endless novelty fail us. They exploit the structure of Desire without revealing it. Two other “solutions” have been created which seem to escape the Desire trap, but they are tricks as well – my book Klobberland talks of a third option:

Option 1: Openly Position the Object of Desire as Unreachable.
This creates an infinite gap and an eternal Desire. Hedonistic Western religions often rely on this strategy—promising heaven, utopia, or salvation always “later,” always out of reach. This sustains Desire but hides its structure. It creates dependence on doctrine, priests, rituals, and “enemies” that must be defeated to preserve the promised future. It is a structure that has fueled everything from proselytization to genocides.

Option 2: Eliminate Desire Altogether.
This is the nihilistic approach associated with many Eastern traditions. It seeks to extinguish Desire by extinguishing the OoD. But Desire is essential to human life—it drives passion, purpose, and meaning. And the pursuit of “no desire” is its own Desire: Desiring not to desire. The OoD and OCoD remain intact. This path often turns violence inward through asceticism, bodily domination, or ego-annihilation; in some cases, it spills outward, as in those who use spiritual belief to justify self-destruction or harm to others.

Option 3: A third way — the path that Klobberland explores.
This approach teaches the structure of Desire openly. It refuses superstition and rejects fantasies of heaven or nirvana. Instead, it makes an object of desire out of the lack itself. It shows how “Nothing” can be desirable—not as nihilism, but as liberation from being controlled by illusions of completeness.

This is not defeatism. It is the only stance that dissolves external control and restores genuine freedom. It accepts brokenness rather than fleeing from it. Its byproduct is kindness: to ourselves, to others, and even to our own anxiety.

In this third option, the OoD and OCoD collapse into one another. We no longer chase a final “Something” as though it will fill some hole within us, because we understand that once the object is obtained, the obstacle disappears and Desire evaporates. Instead, we set our sights on the gap itself—on the “not having”—and discover enjoyment there.

Love is a perfect illustration:
In love, the other is an object of desire whose endless mystery always maintains a distance. That distance sustains Desire.
In lust, the person is reduced to a simple object; Desire ends the moment they are “gotten.” 

The process of meditation also exposes this entire structure. We often assume that suffering belongs only to those who fail to get what they want. But even in the best of times—when I do get what I want—I immediately feel the impulse to gorge on it, and in that very indulgence discover that this isn’t what I wanted after all. Satisfaction folds quickly into dissatisfaction, and it is the belief that we can escape this cycle that produces suffering.
 
Meditation reveals this truth directly. The moment we attempt to sit still—even for five minutes—discomfort rushes in. With no distractions, we become acutely aware of the restless dissatisfaction built into us. This is the point: not to flee the frustration, but to encounter it. Meditation’s purpose is to expose the contradiction rather than to dissolve it. And in that exposure lies a quiet liberation.

This is enlightenment—not escape, but finding joy in the very contradiction that makes us who we are.
 
This is why meditation aligns naturally with the third option that Klobberland explores: embracing the structure of desire rather than masking it, fighting it, or elevating it into fantasy.
 
Klobberland does not say we cannot passionately pursue objects; only that achieving them will not complete us. It teaches that not-fully-getting – that getting Nothingness – is essential to Desire and the true path to enjoyment.

​If you enjoyed this new meditation on the deeper meaning of the game, you’ll love THE ART OF WAR AND BASEBALL!! Check it out here: www.theartofwarandbaseball.com