Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life

by Luke Burgis

Most importantly, parents have a responsibility to model healthy relationships. That means paying careful attention to their own mimetic impulses. Even in ways that seem innocent or insignificant. Reacting mimetically to every piece of political news at the dinner table, or to every minor injustice that a child suffers in school or sports, or using kids as pawns in a rivalry with other parents (such as buying your kid a nicer car than their friend’s parents could afford to buy her, to signal your status)—all these things create an atmosphere in which mimetic behavior is learned and becomes the norm.

Fluency in a new language, a sense of humor, emotional intelligence, and aesthetic sensibility are all things we probably know tacitly but cannot articulate fully. So is a vibrant imagination, which is filled with models of desire at a young age.

I believe the purpose of work is not merely to make more but to become more. The value of work cannot be measured by the objective output of a job alone; it must take into account the subjective transformation of the person who is working.

Two doctors could make exactly the same rounds in the same hospital. After ten years, one could grow bitter and resentful as a result of the long hours, bad cafeteria food, broken insurance system, and ungrateful patients; the other could experience the same things but use them to become a more caring, patient, and understanding human being.

Transforming desires at work doesn’t happen by tinkering with the status quo. It happens when someone steps outside a mimetic system—for instance, the “industry standard” in compensation—and takes a more comprehensive view of life and humanity.

The preservation of humanity might rely on a third invention—one that is yet to be discovered, or that is in the process of being discovered. Humans will have to find a new way to channel desire in productive and nonviolent ways. Without one, mimetic desire will spiral out of control. It’s impossible to know what this emergent social mechanism might be, but I’ll indulge in some brief speculation.

“Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want,” he said.36 Ravikant is drawing on the perennial understanding of numerous spiritual traditions about the link between desire and suffering: desire is always for something we feel we lack, and it causes us to suffer.

Mimetic desire manifests itself as the constant yearning to be someone or something else (what we called metaphysical desire). People select models because they think the models hold the key to a door that just might lead to the thing they have been looking for. But as we’ve seen, this metaphysical desire is a never-ending game. We cycle through models faster than we cycle through clothes. The act of winning, of gaining possession of the thing that the model made us want, convinces us that we chose the wrong model in the first place. And so we go in search of another one. Mimetic desire is a paradoxical game. Winning is how you lose. Every victory is Pyrrhic.

Our choice is between living an unintentionally mimetic life or doing the hard work of cultivating thick desires. The latter may require us to suffer from the fear of missing out on the shiny mimetic objects that surround us.

If I’m going to die of exhaustion—and, eventually, all of us will—it’s not going to be from chasing thin desires. It’s going to be from grabbing hold of a thick one and holding on until there’s nothing left.

The transformation of desire happens when we become less concerned about the fulfillment of our own desires and more concerned about the fulfillment of others. We find, paradoxically, that it is the very pathway to fulfilling our own. The positive cycle of desire works because the primary thing being imitated is the gift of self. This is the positive force of mimetic desire behind every beautiful marriage, friendship, and act of charity. In the end, wanting is another word for loving. And that, too, is mimetic.