# Wanting **Luke Burgis** | [[Prediction]]  --- > "Desire, like gravity, does not reside autonomously in any one thing or person. It lives in the space between them." Most of what we want isn't really ours. René Girard's insight—that desire is *mimetic*, learned by imitating others—collapses the romantic fiction that we choose our wants from some inner wellspring of authentic preference. We don't. We want what other people want. The line between us and the things we desire is always curved, bent by the gravitational pull of models we rarely acknowledge. This matters because if you don't know your models, they're probably wreaking havoc in your life. The colleague whose success irritates you, the lifestyle you're chasing without knowing why, the goals that seemed urgent until you achieved them—all are symptoms of unexamined mimesis. Naming your models gives you power over them. The book offers a framework for understanding how desire actually operates, and why so many conflicts—personal, organisational, political—spiral into rivalry. More usefully, it shows how mimetic desire can be channelled positively rather than destructively. --- ## Core Ideas ### [[Mimetic Desire]] Humans learn to want things by imitating others. Models are people or things that show us what is worth wanting—not our "objective" analysis, not biological instinct, but other people's desires. The characters in great novels feel realistic because they want things the way we do: through the imitation of someone else, their secret model. This creates a counterintuitive dynamic: the more we deny needing models, the more power they have over us. In childhood, imitation is open and celebrated. In adulthood, it becomes hidden mimesis—we're secretly on the lookout for models whilst insisting we need none. ### [[Celebristan and Freshmanistan]] Girard distinguishes two worlds where models operate differently: **Celebristan** is where models live outside our social sphere—separated by time, space, money, or status. A dead philosopher, a billionaire, a rock star. Because there's no threat of direct competition, we imitate them freely and openly. There's no rivalry because there's no proximity. **Freshmanistan** is where models live inside our world—colleagues, neighbours, friends. Here, proximity breeds rivalry. We admire them in secret because admitting we want to be more like them feels embarrassing. The closer the model, the more intense the competition for the same objects of desire. Rivalry is a function of proximity. This is why office politics gets vicious, why family feuds run deep, and why we become like our enemies the more we fight them. ### [[Cycle 1 and Cycle 2]] Mimetic desire tends to move in one of two patterns: **Cycle 1** is the negative cycle—mimetic desire leading to rivalry and conflict. It runs on scarcity thinking: they have something I don't, and there isn't room for both of us. This cycle accelerates like a flywheel, with each turn intensifying the conflict. **Cycle 2** is the positive cycle—mimetic desire uniting people in a shared desire for some common good. It comes from abundance thinking and mutual giving. People start wanting things they couldn't imagine wanting before, and help others go further too. A negative cycle is disrupted when two people, through empathy, stop seeing each other as rivals. Empathy isn't sympathy—it's the ability to enter another person's experience without imitating or identifying with them. ### [[Discernment vs Decision]] The Latin root of "decision" (*caedere*) means "to cut" or "to kill." When we decide, we cut away alternatives. But discernment (*discernere*) means "to distinguish"—to see the difference between paths and know which is better. Desires are discerned, not decided. The practical test: (1) which desire gives lasting satisfaction vs fleeting? (2) which is more generous? (3) on your deathbed, which would you be more at peace with? (4) where does the desire actually come from? --- ## Key Insights **Models are most powerful when hidden.** If you want someone to become passionate about something, they have to believe the desire is their own. The illusion of autonomy is how mimesis actually works. **We imitate not for imitation's sake but to differentiate ourselves.** The smartphone isn't a slot machine in our pockets—it's a dream machine, giving us unfettered access to the desires of others. The neurological addiction is real, but the deeper threat is metaphysical: constant exposure to what everyone else wants. > "The effort to leave the beaten paths forces everyone into the same ditch." **All true desire is metaphysical.** When someone wants a handbag, it's not the handbag they're after. It's the imagined newness of being they think it will bring. We're always searching for something beyond the material. **Authority is more mimetic than we believe.** The fastest way to become an expert is to convince a few of the right people to call you one. It's worth occasionally deconstructing the mimetic layers behind someone's authority—how did we actually choose our sources of knowledge? **The health of an organisation is directly proportional to the speed at which truth travels within it.** This is a diagnostic: mimetic games, hidden rivalries, and status competition all slow down truth. Healthy organisations make mimetic dynamics visible and manageable. **Transcendent leaders have models of desire outside the systems they're in.** This is how they avoid getting trapped in the mimetic games around them. They can see the system because they're not fully captured by it. --- ## Connects To - [[The Courage to Be Disliked]] - Adler's separation of tasks as a way to break mimetic entanglement - [[Skin in the Game]] - "prestige" comes from the Latin *praestigium*, meaning "illusion" or "conjurer's trick" - [[The Most Important Thing]] - contrarian investing requires escaping the mimetic pull of market consensus - [[Alchemy]] - both books attack the Romantic Lie that desire and preference are rational and autonomous - [[Loss Aversion]] - the intensity of rivalry comes from loss aversion: we fear losing status more than we value gaining it - [[The Fifth Discipline]] - systems thinking applied to understanding mimetic flywheels and cycles --- ## Final Thought Two questions sit at the heart of this book: *What do you want?* and *What have you helped others want?* The first question is harder than it sounds. Most of our desires aren't examined—they're absorbed from models we haven't named. The Romantic Lie tells us there's a straight line between us and what we want. The truth is the line is always curved, bent by others. The second question is about responsibility. Leaders, parents, marketers, friends—we're all influencing what others want, whether we intend to or not. The choice isn't whether to be a model but what kind of model to be. Every encounter enables someone to want more, less, or differently.