Wanting to awaken is the desire to produce something permanent in consciousness.

When it is not engaged in meaningful problem solving,
consciousness falls to story-telling, both to others and itself;
and in story-telling, nothing is permanent;
everything is always changing,
indeed, story-telling survives by constantly renewing its contents.
This lack of a permanency in consciousness is what frees men from living totally by fixed responses to the environment, and gives them the ability to picture it otherwise, then execute the imagined change.
 

This lack of a permanent structure to consciousness is natural to man’s brain,
and is therefore uncritically accepted and generally found unremarkable;
nothing metaphysical is being herein alleged regarding this situation,
it is simply being noted that while all other organs have a permanent,
predictable product -- consciousness does not;
its sole product (thoughts) are characterized by a lack of permanency, 
and predictability.
The brain seems to be compensating for this by introducing into consciousness
the sensation of a self --
an entity that experiences consciousness that is itself permanent,
(like a ship whose cargo is constantly changing,
yet the ship itself is always the same).
 

This is one purpose of the neurally based sensation in man that there is a him
in his consciousness that is directing and experiencing his consciousness.
By providing the mental impression that there is a permanent self that is the consistent medium for the im-permanent thoughts,
the brain frees up consciousness to pursue its extraordinary activities.
 

Under routine conditions this arrangement runs unnoted in men;
only when the disruptive results of anomalous neural wiring occur
do questions regarding the, sense-of-self come to light;
judged by whatever be the majority standard,
it is only when a particular person’s thoughts are deemed so unreflective of
locally defined reality --  and he seems totally unable to realize it –
do men even momentarily, imprecisely ponder the relationship between
what seems to be the them inside of them,
and the thoughts this them is presumed to willfully have.
(Put crudely but not inaptly: except when men of ordinary consciousness
are thinking about some other man as being crazy in his thinking
do they ever have a brush with the craziness that is ordinary thinking).
 
 

But of concern here is the few --  not the majority:
a quite small number of people with an innate dissatisfaction with
the lack of permanency in consciousness;
they have applied to it, many strange and grasping names,
and since what they are disturbed about in consciousness,
everyone else accepts to be the natural state of consciousness,
the majority, if they hear of the few’s interest,  find it perfectly bewildering.

 
Seldom do even the few put their fingers-of-mind directly on the spot
that is bothering them, but this is what it is:
consciousness produces nothing permanent in the mind –
it endlessly produces thoughts, but the thoughts are not permanent;
the few’s ancient and on going, so-called struggle to:
awaken-from-a-dream-in-which-man-normally-lives;
to find-enlightenment-amidst-a-world-of-ignorance-&-confusion;
to achieve-liberation-from-a deadening-inner-captivity
are all expressions of the same desire:

                to produce something permanent in consciousness.
 
 
 
 

The stories the liver tells are all the same;
the kidneys have but one story to tell;
in any given area within man, the story-telling taking place is consistent
and therein is its permanency;
deviation there from equals illness;
the brain’s consciousness is the exception.
It consistently produces thoughts --  but the thoughts are not consistent;
they lack permanency and are just minimally dependable;
consciousness is most reliable and consistent in matters in the physical world,
and at its peak when they relate to survival,
(consciousness will permanently remember the way to plant corn;
start a fire; find water),
but in the non physical world of man's second reality,
consciousness lacks anything resembling permanency;
the health of his cultural world in fact depends on a lack of permanency;
all humans eat the same food, drink the same water; breathe the same air,
but all worship different gods; follow different customs; call different things art;
the only thing permanent about man’s second reality is
the permanent sensation within each man that there is a permanent him inside of him who is experiencing it.
(You might note that this constitutes a closed-system
whose nature cannot be recognized by anything within the system.)
 
 

The few in their variously named attempts, approaches & disciplines
to achieve something extraordinary and far removed from everyday existence
have a wiring anomaly in their brain that causes their consciousness to be dissatisfied with its natural, impermanent nature,
and what they (usually unwittingly) are attempting to do is
hammer out in their consciousness something that is permanent:
it is this longed for something that is being called:
awakening; enlightenment; liberation.
 

Maneuvering your awareness to see the situation thus can be of great help;
no way to prove it  --  you have to try it;
just hold the idea as consistently as possible:

“My wanting to awaken is a desire to produce something permanent
in my consciousness   --

       --  finally!  --  and for the first time   –   something permanent in consciousness.”
 
 

This is presented with the highest recommendation.
 

                                         J
 
 
 
 
 
 

....you might further enjoy noting that it is this lack of anything permanent in man’s consciousness that accounts for
his irrational love of memories, (even irrelevant, embarrassing and painful ones):
                               they represent an approximation of something permanent in the mind.