What is desired is always outside the self. Desire seeks to close the gap between the inside and outside. This gap cannot be bridged except imaginatively. Only what is ultimate can reach outside our being. We desire what we want to be—to desire is to assemble a self paradoxically through our lack. It is the lot of human beings to be faced with the irritation of unending desire, to exist apart from the world and from other human beings, no matter how close we imagine ourselves…
