Mimetic Desire: Escaping the Labyrinth of Borrowed Hungers
We believe our desires are sovereign. We look at the car, the career, or the romantic partner and fiercely defend the illusion that our appetite for them is entirely authentic, generated spontaneously from the depths of our own unique individuality. This is the great romantic lie of the modern ego. The philosopher René Girard shattered this illusion with a terrifyingly precise ontological observation: human desire is not linear; it is triangular. We do not possess a fundamental, instinctual compass for our desires. Because we do not know what to want, we look to others to show us what is valuable. We borrow our hungers. We are trapped in the invisible, exhausting labyrinth of Mimetic Desire . The Triangle of the Model To understand your own ambition, you must first locate the hidden third point of the triangle. There is you (the subject), the object you desire, and the Model (the mediator). You do not actually want the object. You want to be the Model. * The object is merely a pr...