I Know What I Don’t Want – Danny Lim, 45

This image features a stock image vintage illustration of a slit worm snail.

Letters To What We Want is a series of letters composed by friends, responding to the question ‘What do you want? In 2021 and beyond?’. The format was left open, as was the choice to sign off anonymously or with a pseudonym.

In exchange, I sent them an artwork, which can be viewed at the end of the post.

I don’t know what I want.

I want many things big and small. But I don’t know if I really want them.

My most frequent answer to most things is “I don’t know”. Or at least it used to be. It frustrated friends and loved ones. They wanted certainty. Certainty is decisive. And decisiveness is sexy. Or at least something that people trusted. Saying “I don’t know” is not very helpful. Not useful.

And yet I believe it’s more accurate. Because I really don’t know. And I think most people don’t anyway.

It seems like I’m writing a letter to my uncertainty. Or is it a letter to ‘uncertainty’?

I know what I don’t want. This list grows with every passing year, and inadvertently defines the gradually receding boundaries of What-I-Want-Land.

This land has recently experienced an invasion that has forced the inhabitants of this awful and clumsy metaphor to sort out their priorities – uncertainty was no longer a choice.

I want you to be strong, wise and have a good heart.

I want to learn about you, and learn from you.

I want to be your friend.

I want to be your teacher.

I want you to laugh and have fun.

I want to earn your respect.

I want you to remember me fondly.

I want, but can only hope, that you can forgive me.

I want to be able to say that I did my best for you.

I know what I want.

– Danny Lim