Fantasies are inherently unrealistic; the very moment you obtain what you seek, you can no longer truly desire it. For desire to exist, its object must remain perpetually absent.
It is not the actual object you want, but the fantasy of it, which is why desire sustains such impossible illusions.
Living solely by your wants will never bring happiness. To be fully human means striving to live by ideas and ideals.
We should not measure our lives by the desires we have fulfilled, but by small moments of integrity, compassion, rationality, and even self-sacrifice. Ultimately, the only way to measure the significance of our own lives is by how much we value the lives of others.
True happiness and self-fulfillment do not rely on material possessions but on the positive change we bring to the world. When we seek happiness through expensive things, it is not genuine joy we are chasing, but rather the temporary feeling of ownership and the desire for social recognition.
This kind of happiness is always fleeting. True, lasting fulfillment is found when a higher purpose drives us: aiming to be a force for positive change and lifting others without expecting anything in return.
References
° Lacan famously argued that “Desire is the desire of nothing“. In Lacanian theory, desire is not born from a need for a specific object, but from a fundamental “lack” within ourselves. According to Lacan, the objects we chase are just stand-ins (“objet petit a“). The moment you actually possess the object, the illusion breaks because a physical object can never fill an abstract, existential lack. Therefore, desire must keep its object out of reach just to keep itself alive.
° In the book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning,’ Frankl argued that humans are not driven primarily by pleasure (wants) or power, but by a “will to meaning“. Frankl asserted that happiness cannot be pursued directly; it must ensue as a side effect of dedicating oneself to a cause greater than oneself, or a person other than oneself.
