Desire, Lack and Learning to Be Present: What If You Don't Have to Have It All Figured Out?

We live in a culture that constantly tells us to figure ourselves out.

Find your purpose.
Know what you want.
Set the intention.
Manifest the life you desire.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting more from life. But psychoanalysis asks a more difficult question:

Do we actually know what we desire?

And perhaps even more importantly: what happens when we finally get the thing we thought we wanted?

Wanting something isn't quite the same as desire

In everyday language, we tend to use wanting and desiring interchangeably.

I want a relationship.
I want a new job.
I want more money.
I want to feel confident.
I want to move somewhere new.

But Lacan makes an important distinction between need, demand and desire.

A need can be satisfied. You are hungry, you eat, and the hunger temporarily disappears.

But for Lacan, human beings don't simply experience needs, we have to make demands of the Other in order for those needs to be met.

Think of hunger. An infant is hungry, but it cannot simply satisfy that hunger itself. It has to cry out to the Other — to be fed, held and cared for. What begins as a need therefore becomes articulated as a demand.

The demand may appear to be simply:

“I am hungry. Feed me.”

But something more enters into the relationship. The response of the Other is not only about satisfying hunger. It also carries something of love, care and recognition.

The Other can satisfy the need, but cannot completely satisfy what is being asked for at the level of love.

And this is where desire emerges.

As Dylan Evans explains in An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, desire is not simply the appetite for satisfaction or the demand for love, but the difference that remains between them.

So, in very simple terms:

Need: “I am hungry.”
Demand: “Feed me.”
Desire: What remains beyond the satisfaction of the need.

This is why desire cannot simply be reduced to:

“I want X, therefore if I get X, I will be satisfied.”

Because even when the need is satisfied, something remains.

And that is what makes desire different.

Lacan puts it even more directly:

“Desire is neither the appetite for satisfaction, nor the demand for love…”

Desire isn't simply another need waiting to be fulfilled. It is something that continues beyond satisfaction.

And this is where things become much more interesting. So what is the object of desire?

This is where Lacan's concept of objet petit a becomes important.

Objet petit a — often translated as the object-cause of desire — is not simply the thing we want.

It is what sets desire in motion.

Lacan's point is subtle: the object we consciously think we desire may not be the true source of the desire itself.

You might think:

“If I get this relationship, I'll finally feel secure.”

Or:

“If I get this job, I'll finally feel successful.”

Or:

“If I look like that, I'll finally feel confident.”

And perhaps you do get it.

But then something else appears.

Another relationship.
Another achievement.
Another version of yourself.
Another thing to improve.

This doesn't necessarily mean that you are ungrateful, impossible to satisfy or constantly chasing the wrong things.

For Lacan, desire itself is structured around a lack.

As Evans puts it, “Desire is not a relation to an object, but a relation to a lack.”

The objet petit a is therefore not the final object that will make everything fall into place. It is the cause of desire — the elusive something that keeps desire moving.

Does that mean we are destined to be unhappy?

No.

This is where the idea of lack can easily become misunderstood.

Lack does not mean that something is wrong with you.

It doesn't mean you are incomplete in the sense that you need to find the missing piece.

It means that there is no final object, achievement or person that can completely resolve the question of desire for us.

Lacan famously writes:

“Desire is always the desire for something else.”

This is why the fantasy of “I'll finally be happy when…” can become so powerful.

I'll finally be happy when I meet someone.
When I leave this job.
When I lose the weight.
When I have more money.
When I feel confident.
When my life looks different.

But what if there is no final when?

What if desire isn't a problem that needs to be eliminated?

Can we actually know what we desire?

This is where psychoanalysis becomes interesting.

The answer isn't simply yes or no.

Lacan argues that analysis involves coming to recognise and name something about one's desire through speech. In other words, we can begin to hear something of what we desire by speaking — particularly by paying attention to contradictions, repetitions, fantasies and the things we say without quite meaning to say them.

But there is also a limit.

We cannot completely translate desire into a neat sentence and say:

“There. I've figured myself out.”

Lacan describes a fundamental incompatibility between desire and speech: something always exceeds what can be articulated.

So perhaps psychoanalysis isn't about finally discovering the one true answer to:

“What do I want?”

It may be about becoming more curious about the question itself.

Why do I keep choosing this?

Why does this particular person matter so much?

Why do I want something intensely and then withdraw when it becomes possible?

Why does being desired feel uncomfortable?

Why do I keep pursuing something that never seems to satisfy me?

Why does the thing I thought would make everything better suddenly lose its importance once I have it?

These questions can tell us something about desire that a simple list of goals cannot.

And what does this have to do with manifestation?

Perhaps we can take something useful from manifestation culture without turning desire into a promise that we can simply think our way into the perfect life.

Instead of:

“How do I get everything I want so I can finally be happy?”

we might ask:

“What do I desire, and can I move towards it without making my present life something I need to escape?”

You can want a different relationship without deciding that your current life is worthless.

You can want more money without believing that you will finally become enough when you have it.

You can want to change without treating who you are now as a problem to be fixed.

You can have desires without needing every desire to be fulfilled.

Perhaps the goal isn't to finally become completely satisfied.

Perhaps it is to become more conscious of the ways you desire — while accepting that desire will always contain something that cannot be completely known.

Desire what is next.

Be present for what is now.

Maybe knowing yourself differently doesn't mean finally having yourself figured out.

Maybe it means becoming curious about what has been shaping your life all along.

UNCONSCIOUSLY
Know yourself differently.