I could focus this essay on the state of my romantic and erotic desire at the moment, but I think I’d likely be misunderstood. The short form of it: I have no desire of this kind left in me, and I vaguely believe that every romantic and sexual encounter I’ve had in my life was a mistake.

But to elaborate on that might make it seem like I’m blaming others for my internal feelings, and I want to avoid that.

So instead, I’m going to look at desire more broadly, in terms of what motivates me each day. And in that regard, what Montaigne argues here is no doubt true, that the things that attract me most are those that are most challenging.

Today, I finished watching a 4 hour, 40 minute home made documentary called “As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty.” I felt compelled to watch it because it’s one of the 264 movies to receive votes in the Sight & Sound Film Survey of 2022, where critics and movie historians were polled on the greatest movies ever made. At this moment, I have watched 262 of the movies, so I was not going to be deterred by the documentary’s length or obscurity.

That obscurity was extreme, by the way. There is no physical version of this movie for sale at the moment in the United States, no streaming availability nor digital download. I was able to see it only by logging onto a sketchy Russia website and taking a chance that I might be hijacked from the link.

And it hasn’t been the only extreme measure I’ve needed to take to finish this project. I had to spend $50 to download a truly dreadful 14 hour French experimental film called “Out 1” which I’m still struggling to finish. And yesterday I went onto a French website and purchased a 4K video production of Abel Gance’s nearly 7 hour silent film “Napoleon,” which will be the final movie in the project.

Along the way, I’ve watched a Luis Bunuel film “Los Olvidados” in Spanish (without subtitles) because it’s not available on any English streamer. I’ve sat through the sad brutality of the holocaust documentary “Shoah,” and went to the Internet Archives to watch something called “Wavelength” that was a single static shot without actors or dialogue.

But it’s mostly been a rewarding experience that’s introduced me to films I wouldn’t have otherwise discovered. I take a similar approach to reading fiction — I’m drawn to the long, difficult books. And as I’ve already detailed before, my approach to workouts is always tied to difficult feats, such as running marathons or compiling as many HIIT classes possible. Later this year I’m going to hit 2000 F45 workouts, and on the day when I reach the milestone, I plan to take every scheduled class.

Desire for life is about more than just our pair bonding. But now that I think about it, perhaps I’ve sought out too much difficulty in my relationships, and thought they were only worthwhile if they were highly challenging. But I don’t want to elaborate.