1. Desires are different from needs and animal instincts.
2. Needs are real and natural; desires are mimetic and abstract.
3. We want things like cars and earrings, not just sustenance and sex.
4. But we don’t have a mechanism to choose between objects of desire.
5. Instead, we look for and rely on models that show us what’s worth wanting.
6. These models – people, places, things and lifestyles – act as signposts for desires.
7. So desire is an intellectual pursuit; a striving for what we lack, redefined by others.
8. This constant, never-satisfied striving for something we don't have is what we call desire.
9. From philosophy to psychoanalysis, we’re led to imagine that desires come from within us.
10. The post-Enlightenment, truly rational subject is meant to have an authentic mode of being.
11. Critical theories try to free the self from the suppression of tyrants, ideology, the unconscious.
12. But to think desires are our own is what the social theorist René Girard calls ‘the romantic lie’.
13. In fact, he added that all desire is mimetic — that we copy not just behaviour, but desire itself.
14. For instance, when coveting a luxury car, what we're really desiring is the status it represents.
15. We mimic our models' desires and constantly chase new things as new models keep emerging.
16. This endless dissatisfaction is what the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman calls 'liquid modernity'.
17. And as Girard recognised, there's no autonomous being or authentic self, only mimetic desire.
18. So the irony of desire: in striving to be unique, we find ourselves copying the wants of others.
19. It’s useful to note that mimesis exists on a spectrum; some desires are less mimetic than others.
20. Less mimetic desires, like a mother's love, have deeper roots and fewer variables over time.
21. Then there are entirely mimetic desires, like buying a stock because everyone else wants it.
22. Our abstract desires are either thick, enduring, values-based or thin, fleeting and superficial.
23. While thick desires, like personal growth, offer lasting fulfilment; thin ones, like fads, don't.
24. Girard’s revelation means freedom isn’t found in the individual, but in one’s choice of models.
25. That is, we can’t author our own desires, but we can curate them through intentional imitation.
26. Therefore, the greatest freedom lies not in escaping the mirror of desire, but in choosing its reflection.