Desire: A Taxonomy
Sehnsucht
In his speech on the theme of Sehnsucht (desire), Swiss Federal Councillor Christoph Blocher described sehnsucht as “tender longing [that] goes hand in hand with the painful knowledge that the thing longed for will never quite be attained. Indeed, you even get the feeling that the granting of an eagerly-awaited wish could immediately bring about the destruction of the desired object.”
We have all experienced being flung from pillar to post as we are gripped by our desires. We suffer from our longings, frustrated and dissatisfied with the present, wishing for a place where all our yearnings can be fulfilled. But what exactly are we desiring? Why is it that once we attain the object of our desire, we remain malcontent?
“In this world there are only two tragedies: one is not getting what you want, the other is getting it.”
~Oscar Wilde
Object of Desire
Basic physiological needs (food, shelter, clothing) characterise vital consciousness governing all living creatures that must be satisfied for self-preservation. Our mental consciousness, our will, differentiates us from animals and allows the passage from need to desire. As a human being, I am not content with merely satisfying my needs. I need food, but I want to eat gourmet. I need clothes, but I desire to don the latest fashion. I need shelter, but I desire a McMansion.
“It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.”
~Benjamin Franklin
Desire in this case is a manifestation of social awareness. I do not desire on my own, but in relation to others. The ostentatious possessions feed my pride, enabling me to be envied, to be desired myself, a confirmation, a recognition from others of my importance and superiority, to be a god among men. A desire driven by envy, from a want that has its source from the point of view of a perceived deficiency (negation) becomes an obsession. It agitates. It torments. In the end, it disappoints. This superficial device for recognition is a mental dimension of desire, and it is why we rarely desire what we need.
Ascetic Representation of Desire
We like to think that desire comes with the promise of satisfaction, which we hope rewards us with happiness. It almost always fails. Yet to desire is quintessentially human. Desire is an assertion of life, its tendency to persevere, to expand and increase its being. Therefore one cannot deny desire without denying life itself. Nietzsche understood this best:
“The Church combats the passions with excision in every sense of the word: its practice, its ‘cure’ is castration. It never asks: ‘How can one spiritualize, beautify, deify a desire?’ It has at all times laid the emphasis of its discipline on extirpation (of sensuality, of pride, of lust for power, of avarice, of revengefulness). But to attack the passions at their roots means to attack life at its roots: the practice of the Church is hostile to life…”
~Friedrich Nietzsche in Morality as Anti-Nature, Twilight of the Idols
Religious ascetism treats desire as a want for something lacking, a negative. It views it as sinful. But desire is the very essence of life; to deny desire is to become devoid of life, reduced to an animal with no consciousness of itself.
Spiritualize, Beautify, Deify
Desire’s other dimension is metaphysical. When egocentric desire transcends its material manifestation it matures into a creative, positive force. This is a sublimation of desire, transformed into a feeling so intense it strengthens the core. It tends toward an ardent passion for creation, an aspiration for perfection, an elevation to divinity. This desire is life’s power of assertion, beyond the sole consideration of one’s person. It is not a product of consumerism. It is no longer a predator. It gives. It becomes a gift.
“One loves ultimately one’s desires, not the thing desired.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
We do not always know what we want because we are not able to view our desires in the full light of consciousness. We see it through a glass, darkly, perceived as a projection of the representation of a want: of another person, of self, of recognition. As long as desire is assertion, when false desire transcends its own boundaries and surpasses itself to reach the sublime, there is nothing to reject in desiring.
DEAD ARE ALL THE GODS: NOW DO WE DESIRE THE SUPERMAN TO LIVE. Let this be our final will at the great noontide!
