Thoughts on WANTING by Luke Burgis

I have just finished reading WANTING by Luke Burgis. It’s about the power of mimetic desire in everyday life.

Burgis draws heavily on the work of French writer Rene Girard. It’s basic proposition is that we don’t want anything independently, we want it because someone else wants it and because we want what other people want, we often end up competing for the same things.

The book opens with this arresting quote from Dayne Tortorici, which pretty much nails what it’s about:

“We want what other people want because other people want it, and its penciled-eyebrows all the way down, down to the nth circle of hell where we all die immediately of a Brasilian butt-lift, over and over again.”

This human tendency has been strapped to rocket-boosters with the arrival of social media. We are surrounded by a never-ending scroll of other people’s wants and desires which we adopt for ourselves. It’s something we all wrestle with, and as a parent, I also try and grapple with how to encourage my kids to not get trapped in chasing things they don’t really want.

I found one of the most useful ideas in the book was the difference between Thin Desires and Thick Desires.

Thin Desires are exemplified by the sort of thing you’ll see for the first time on instagram and TikTok and then a moment later decide you must have. These desires are shallow, transitory, insubstantial, and deeply unsatisfying. We can get trapped in a destructive and circular pattern of picking up a desire only to replace it shortly after with another thin desire and then become trapped in this wheel of wanting that keeps spinning, but doesn’t take us anywhere.

Thick Desires on the other hand are persistent, sustainable, durable, and long lasting, with an ambitious, but achievable goal as its destination. Thick Desires take us forward and can act as our North Star leading us out of the trap of circular desires.

I work in kids and family media and we're constantly wrestling with the concern that kids are trapped in the comparison trap of social media, and how to help them deal with the negative loop of wanting what other people want or have. Perhaps the idea of cultivating and encouraging Thick Desires holds the key to unlocking that trap.