I still remember the first day of snow in 8th grade; seeing that kid in the warm puffer jacket is something I’ll never forget…

This week I’ve been looking at the Sirens within the context of Desire.

No matter how far I get in my life, I seem to always be plagued by not having the things I want. Desire and wanting are a part of the human experience we all encounter.

What is it that corrupts us within desire? Why do we sometimes fear it, and are we destined to always fall to ruin when what we desire is placed in front of us?

Are we always the thing holding ourselves back?

Desire as a lifestyle

I wanted it. I chased it.

In 8th grade, during a winter so cold it made the air feel sharp, I was always the first to arrive at school. Seven a.m. The playground was empty, save for me and a ball I’d kick around to stay warm and pass the time. It was my routine: running in circles, waiting for the next kid to show up so I wouldn’t feel so alone. Forty minutes later, the trickle of students would begin, and by the time the buses arrived, the playground would flood with noise and life.

That’s when I first noticed Ed. Unlike me, Ed didn’t shuffle in from a bus with a crowd. He was dropped off by car, stepping out in a brand-new jacket and shoes. He didn’t have to wait, didn’t have to run around convincing anyone to play a game I’d made up to distract myself. Ed just seemed to belong. He had a confidence I couldn’t explain, an effortless ease that made him untouchable.

I didn’t know how to change how I arrived at school or how to have that presence, but the jacket—that was something I could figure out. It became a symbol in my mind. If I could get one like his, everything would change. I’d have what he had. I’d stop being the kid chasing a ball alone in the cold.

So I started working toward it. At first, it was clumsy. I took chocolate and sweets from home and sold them at school. It got me enough to start, but not nearly enough to buy the jacket. Then, I saw an opportunity. The iPod had just come out—a sleek, expensive symbol of status—and I realized I had something valuable: my massive illegal music collection. If I could find a used iPod and load it up, I could sell it for a profit.

It worked. Slowly, trade by trade, sale by sale, I scraped together the money I needed. When I finally had enough, I went to the store and bought the jacket. As I walked out, wearing it for the first time, I expected everything to change. I’d feel different. I’d be different. But nothing happened. I was still me.

It was a gut punch. The jacket hadn’t transformed me, hadn’t solved anything. I still showed up at school at seven, still ran around the playground alone, still had to convince the other kids to join me when they arrived. The jacket didn’t give me Ed’s confidence or his effortless presence. It didn’t make me belong.

Looking back, I can see the truth I couldn’t see then. The jacket was a siren, calling me toward an illusion. It wasn’t about the jacket itself, just as it’s never about the object of desire. The sirens in the myth didn’t offer anything real. Their song wasn’t about the words; it was about the power of the pull, the way it made sailors forget who they were and why they were there.

But the sirens weren’t inherently evil. They didn’t kill sailors. The sailors destroyed themselves by giving in to the song, by losing control. Ulysses understood that. He tied himself to the mast—not to deny the sirens’ power but to experience it without succumbing to it. His men, with their ears blocked by beeswax, kept rowing, untouched by the song. The sirens weren’t there to destroy them; they were there to test them, to reveal who they were.

That’s what power does. Beauty, wealth, influence—these are forms of power, but they’re not inherently good or bad. They just exist. Their impact depends entirely on how we perceive them and how we respond. Do we chase them blindly, believing they’ll change something fundamental about who we are? Or do we stop, question, and recognize them for what they are: forces that test us, challenge us, and teach us?

Modern media amplifies these forces. It weaves narratives around beauty, status, and success, turning them into sirens of our time. The song is louder now, engineered to pull us in, to make us forget the cost of chasing illusions. But the power hasn’t changed. Only the way we interact with it has.

The jacket didn’t change me because I was still chasing something outside myself, believing it would fix what I felt inside. That’s the trick of power—it’s not about what you have; it’s about how you respond. The siren’s call is always there, tempting us to lose ourselves, to abandon discipline, to believe in the illusion. But the call is also an opportunity. It forces us to confront our desires, to ask why we want what we want, and to define who we are in the process.

I still hear the sirens. The calls are different now, but the pull is the same. And sometimes, I still chase them. Sometimes, I catch myself believing that if I just get the next thing, everything will change. But I’ve learned to stop and question, to tie myself to the mast when I need to, to row past when I must.

The sirens don’t destroy us. They reveal us. What we chase and how we chase it define us far more than the thing itself. And the real power lies in seeing the call for what it is—a test of our relationship with ourselves.

R

Journal Prompts

For three years I’ve kept a journal,
Every morning I write

On my good days I write three pages, A5, single-spaced, on my worst, I write double size with large gaps and scrape through to a single page… but the time and day are consistent.

It’s my way of getting out my thoughts.

I’ll include my journal prompts for the week in case you want to come on the journey with me.

This week I’m going to look deeper into the idea of desire and understanding what we want and why, maybe it’s helpful for your Christmas lists…

Poets’ corner

This week’s poem is in response to the prompt: Sirens.

Sirens, Raise a Glass!

To those without a mast onboard,
Without the wax to plug the ears,
Without the friends to pull the oars,
Exposed to let desires steer,

To those with no direction home,
With no enchantress to advise,
To those becoming a pile of bones,
A toast to the men of lullabies!

Video Essay

I’m trying to make things on IG more entertaining than my paintings. They’re only really special in person, but I hope that the research and ideas they cover are still interesting.

This week’s essay on power and sirens is available as a 90-second montage, I like it, and I hope you do too.

More coming

russjones__

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I love you loads

R