Philosophy of desire

In philosophy, desire has been identified as a philosophical problem since Antiquity. In Plato's The Republic, Socrates argues that individual desires must be postponed in the name of the higher ideal.

Within the teachings of Buddhism, craving is thought to be the cause of all suffering. By eliminating craving, a person can attain ultimate happiness, or Nirvana. While on the path to liberation, a practitioner is advised to "generate desire" for skillful ends.

History

Ancient Greece

In Aristotle's De Anima the soul is seen to be involved in motion, because animals desire things and in their desire, they acquire locomotion. Aristotle argued that desire is implicated in animal interactions and the propensity of animals to motion. But Aristotle acknowledges that desire cannot account for all purposive movement towards a goal. He brackets the problem by positing that perhaps reason, in conjunction with desire and by way of the imagination, makes it possible for one to apprehend an object of desire, to see it as desirable. In this way reason and desire work together to determine what is a good object of desire. This resonates with desire in the chariots of Plato's Phaedrus, for in the Phaedrus the soul is guided by two horses, a dark horse of passion and a white horse of reason. Here passion and reason, as in Aristotle, are also together. Socrates does not suggest the dark horse be done away with, since its passions make possible a movement towards the objects of desire, but he qualifies desire and places it in a relation to reason so that the object of desire can be discerned correctly, so that we may have the right desire. Aristotle distinguishes desire into appetition and volition.

Désiré (baritone)

Désiré (29 December 1823 – September 1873) was a French baritone, who is particularly remembered for creating many comic roles in the works of the French operetta composer Jacques Offenbach. Désiré was a stage name; the artist's real name was Amable Courtecuisse, but for most of his life he was generally known as Désiré.

Life and career

He was born in Lille, or a nearby village, and studied bassoon, singing, and declamation at the Lille Conservatory. His first appearances were at small theatres in Belgium and northern France beginning in 1845.

In 1847, he arrived at the Théâtre Montmartre in Paris where he met Hervé. He asked Hervé to provide him with a musical sketch (drawn from Cervantes' novel Don Quixote), in which the tall and thin Hervé as the Don was pitted against the short and plump Désiré as Sancho Pança. The sketch inspired what was later dubbed the first French operetta, Hervé's Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança, which premiered in 1848 at Adolphe Adam's Théâtre National at the Cirque Olympique, but with Joseph Kelm, instead of Désiré, as Sancho Pança.

Desire (disambiguation)

Desire is a sense of longing or hoping. It may also refer to:

Concepts

Music

Albums

Songs

.asia

.asia is the official designated regional domain extension for Asia and the Pacific. It is a sponsored generic top-level-domain (gTLD) operated by the DotAsia Organisation Ltd. .asia is open to companies, individuals and organisations who have connection to the region. .Asia domains can be seen and used by international and Asian businesses; regional conferences and symposiums; as well as Asian artists and celebrities.

The .Asia web address was introduced to the public through a comprehensive launch involving a multiphased Sunrise and Landrush process from October 9, 2007 to March 12, 2008. It became available on a first-come-first-served registration basis on March 26, 2008. In 2013, there are more than 455,000 .asia domains registered across 155 countries.

Roll-out/response

.asia founded the first Pioneer Domains Program on July 20, 2007, more than two months prior to the opening of its Sunrise launch. It offered businesses and individuals an opportunity to own and build on any .Asia domain before the TLD opened its doors to mass public registration. Applicants were asked to submit a brief business plan for the domain of choice and make a marketing deposit of US$10,000. The full deposit was returned to successful applicants against proof of marketing attributed to the promotion of the built out .Asia website.

Asia

Asia (ⁱ/ˈeɪʒə/ or /ˈeɪʃə/) is the Earth's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometers, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area. It has historically been home to the world's first modern civilizations and has always hosted the bulk of the planet's human population. Asia is notable for not only overall large size and population, but unusually dense and large settlements as well as vast barely populated regions within the continent of 4.4 billion people. The boundaries of Asia are traditionally determined as that of Eurasia, as there is no significant geographical separation between Asia and Europe. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean.

Asia (Asia album)

Asia is the self-titled debut studio album by British rock supergroup Asia, released in 1982. It contains their biggest hit and signature song, "Heat of the Moment", which reached #4 in the US on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Commercial success

Upon its release in March 1982, Asia enjoyed massive commercial success, reaching #1 in the US and spending nine weeks at the top of the Billboard album chart. According to both Billboard and Cash Box, it was the #1 album in the United States for the year 1982.Asia was certified 4x-platinum in the US by the RIAA on 10 February 1995.

In the band's native UK, Asia did not perform as well as in the US, peaking only at #11. At the same time, it spent a total of 38 weeks in the UK Albums Chart. The record received a gold status in Britain on 18 October 1982. "Heat of the Moment" climbed to No. 46.

Asia's total worldwide sales are estimated at over ten million copies.

Critical reception

Asia's debut album was met with mixed reviews. Robert Christgau panned the record and gave it a rating of "C–". In his Consumer Guide Review the critic stated that "rare that a big new group is bad enough to sink your teeth into any more" and called Asia "pompous – schlock in the grand manner". On the other side, Tom Demalon of AllMusic, in a four-and-a-half-star review, praised the album saying that "there's no denying the epic grandeur of the music, which provided some much-needed muscle to radio at the time, and did so with style".