Even deeper than the idea that the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos can reasonably easily make value judgements between what is "yummy, yummy, yummy" and what is "not yummy", is the notion that the idea that the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos actually needs things. The fact that there are things which are "yummy" and "not yummy" does not exist in a void but springs forth from the fact that humans are living and breathing creatures who would like to go on living and breathing most of the time. On top of this, the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos which makes value judgements, and processes needs and wants based upon "yummy, yummy, yummy" and what is "not yummy" and fashions them into more than just needs but into wants, preferences, desires, likes, dislikes, disgusts, revulsions et cetera et cetera et cetera.
Psychologists like Abraham Mazlow have tried to enquire into what people need at an atomic level and at their most elemental, those needs are found to be not broadly wider than air, food, shelter, clothing, protection and to love and be loved. Who would have guessed that relatively small living beings need the things which keep them alive and not dead. Seeing as we have come to the highest end of this, we can say that the job here is done.
Or is it?
The kosmos is notoriously awful at satisfying needs and wants and at matching resources to the fulfillment of those needs and wants. There are some mechanisms such as the abstract idea of the market which matches volumes and prices, or justice which matches torts and injuries to consequence, or karma which purports to match moral goodness or badness to some kind of wages and rewards; but we all know that the market fails, that justice fails, and that karma never really worked in the first place.
The difference between what people need and/or want and what the kosmos will assign them, boils down to a crude equation: Needs and Wants minus Allotment equals a Gap. Nature generally abhors a vacuum; so instead of leaving an individual with the gap, it leaves us all with a sense of Longing about the things that we do not have. In principle it is not bad to need things because the alternative to staying alive is not to be alive any more and the mere thought of that can be terrifying. In principle it is also not bad to want things because wanting things is the result of the beast making value judgements et cetera, to chase the "yummy, yummy, yummy". It is when that wanting is excessive and harms others and yourself that it is a problem.
As limited beings who live inside electro-mechanical meatbags, with some kind of unknowable operating system of soul/spirit/zoe (your conception of the kosmos will vary), and who operate in both limited space and linear time, we have expectations about how the kosmos operates. It is good to have expectations about how the kosmos operates because whether we like it or not, we had no choice about entering it and we need some set of base expectations in order to live inside of it. Those expectations come with all kinds of attachments in relation to how narrative should unfold. Part of the reason why stories work is that they unfold in the direction of narrative and match up with the way that our expectations about how the kosmos operates suggests that they should. We also live inside the narrative of our own lives; and of course with continuous reinforcement and observation of how other people live their lives, our expectations are in turn shaped by those same inputs.
There is an entire question surrounding the whole notion of desire and the relative value and morality of wants. Some people have answered the question with the broad answer that because the human heart is selfish and evil, then everything it wants must also therefore be selfish and evil. While that sounds like it might be true, it fails upon testing when you consider that some of our wants spring forth from our needs. Is it evil to want to love and be loved? Is it evil to want to express the various forms of civic philos and be part of a broader community and commonwealth, or to want to express eros and be part of a very intimate partnership, or to want to express storge and be of service and helpful to others? Granted, the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos can reasonably made out to be nothing more than a brute but even the beast has needs and wants to know and be known and to validate and be validated. Indeed you have to take a very very cynical view of the world to reduce literally everything down to transactional elements based upon selfishness but even then when you do scrub everything down that very Randian view of the world, even the notion of evil itself disappears.
As we do live in a kosmos in which other electro-mechanical meatbags live lives which are broadly similar, the expectations which we form tend to trend towards some kind of central normality. If it is reasonable for other people to have a thing, then why isn't it reasonable for me to enjoy something similar. If 95% of all things lie within 2 standard deviations of some central normality, then the fact that we do not or can not enjoy a thing, means that we must be an abnormal edge case. Yes it is true that every single person is an individual but at the same time we all develop some innate sense that outliers from a central normality give rise to the possibility of some kind of defectiveness. As with loneliness which implies some state of defectiveness which people need to stay away from, an unfulfilled needs or want within ourselves, might imply some kind of defectiveness within ourselves. A sense of longing can be a kind of warning lamp that something inside ourselves needs to be corrected. The problem as with so many elements of Kakosynaisthima is that it can not be shared with anyone else, except as some broad collective project.
Here is both a paradox and a problem, everyone at some time does develop at least some sense of longing for things that are not, will be not, and/or must not be. If everyone does develop a sense of longing at some time, then it can not definitionally be an edge case which lies beyond two standard deviations of some central normality. Longing is very much a part of the central normality of being human, yet due to the fact that we are simply unable to share so very much about our experience with anyone else, that sense of defectiveness from cosmic loneliness is real.
It is quite true the idea that the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos is selfish but having both needs and wants which stem from more than purely selfish roots, means that a sense of Longing can't always be implicitly or actually evil. The wish that will never be fulfilled, or the desire which will never be satisfied, or the goal which through circumstances of time and space, all of which will never be achieved: can and do create a real sense of longing. Mere gluttony and avarice stem from the unchained beast's desire for more and more to an unreasonable degree, but a wish for something which is reasonable and still will never be met, is a different thing entirely.
Gluttony and greed extend from the fact that selfish people have an unlimited capacity to produce wants and then will sometimes for to unreasonable lengths to achieve the fulfilment of those wants. Longing in contrast, usually has to do more with wants that are not fulfilled at all and when those wants are fulfilled, the sense of longing disappears entirely. In some respects if gluttony and greed are the racking up of expenses within the human soul, then longing is like the issuance of some currency which is looking to retire a debt and square the ledger; and when it does so both the debt and the longing disappear.
Perhaps there is something to be said about the beast which shouts "I" at the heart wanting more and more and more, to the point of greed, gluttony and avarice. However, that beast can certainly be chained through the art of training, of will, and of practicing temperance (kind of). The idea that the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos has needs that can not or will not be met, or wants that can not or will not be met, must invariably cause a degree of anxiety and worry. A need that is not met, or a want that will never be fulfilled, especially if that need or want is reasonable, is a just cause for sadness.
On the other hand, what kind of comfort is there to someone going through a a sense of Longing about things that might or might not be. What do you say to the person who will never have a child? There may be circumstances which prevent it from happening, such as physical ability, or simply because life and destiny did not take them there. What about the person who never finds a significant other, through seemingly no fault of their own. What about the person who wanted to go to university, or wanted to go overseas, or simply wanted a place that they could call home? What about those people who had something which has been torn away from them by circumstance, disaster or war? What they want is a world that been and gone, and must not be again. Again we return to the fact that the kosmos does not have a very good distribution system, and it is often the actions of very very evil people which changes the fortunes of a great deal many other people for the worse.
Longing might very well drive someone to change their circumstances because of the flames which burn inside the human heart. If one hopes to change the kosmos such that the sense of longing a thing can be fulfilled, then that is mission accomplished. If one is angry that the kosmos is faulty and bad at satisfying those needs and wants, then that will also drive someone to take action. Of course, those flames can very much be extinguished because even electro-mechanical meatbags with some kind of unknowable operating system of soul/spirit/zoe must realise that there are things that will not or must not be. Then what?
Strip away longing to see what lies underneath and what we find is a sense of hope, which has been hurt. People develop a sense of longing over what once was or what might be because they have needs and wants which they hope will be fulfilled. The refugee who has escaped awful circumstances has a sense of longing that they will be able to find a better life for both them and their children. The person who lives in a country which has been snapped in half due to war, or some kind of cultural separation, has a sense of longing that they will once again live in a country which is repaired. The person who is currently estranged from their family or friends due to some argument, conflict, dispute, distance, et cetera has a sense of longing that they will be able to reconcile the relationship. Some who is desperately single and lonely has a sense of longing that they will be able to share their life with someone with who they can love and be loved and validate and be validated. All of these are underpinned by a sense of hope that the kosmos can and should change in a way that they would like it to. Again, we return to the awful truth that the kosmos is bad at satisfying needs and wants.
If there is anything to be gained from having a sense of longing it is the reminder that hope still exists. However badly people have been hurt and however much the kosmos has failed to meet people's needs and wants, as the future remains unwritten, there is still possibility in the unknown. It could very well be possible that the kosmos might apportion something and those needs and wants will be fulfilled; in which case a sense of patience is in order. It could very well be possible that the kosmos might never apportion something and those needs and wants will always remain unfulfilled; in which case a sense of gratitude for the things that we already have is in order.
"Follow your dreams, unless your dream is stupid; then you need to get a better dream."
- Journey.
The actual telos of longing could very well be that final push for people who are still waiting for a world that been and gone and must not be again, that the winds of change have blown and blown again, and that what they were hoping for is impossible. It could very well be that a sense of longing is the kosmos' way of trying to display 403 Forbidden or 404 File Not Found messages and it matters not a jot, because you simply will not get the thing you were hoping for. Remember, the other side of a market which is about satisfying needs and wants and at matching resources to the fulfillment of those needs and wants, is that sometimes the market will either refuse to line these things up due to market failure, or refuse to line these things up because the volumes and costs of doing so can never be reconciled. It hates to admit it but the most offensive thing to the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos, is being told "No."
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