It is a fact that setting a goal for oneself to aim at, produces the corresponding mental coordinates that navigate their actions to its achievement and a motive that provides orientation for the work in progress. Yet why is it so common that people lose themselves in the course of this work, usually as a sense of failure and disappointment, or even as what has been named burnout over the last few years? Multiple motivational quotes are then invocated to assist the suffering person, by further encouraging their work… and their life whose definition has become identical to the word work: “Never give up!” “The only barrier is You!” “Believe in yourself!” “Become a better You!” etc. only for one to come across the same affects that sooner or later happen to re-emerge, sometimes even more powerfully.
Our life experience enlightens us with all the answers from which we draw natural conclusions: Why would there be a burnout if not by some forced labour? And why would there be any disappointment at all, if not due to a failed expectation of being rewarded by our efforts? It is of course inevitable that one demands a reward for their efforts if what they do is something they don’t want to, namely, something they are forced to do.
We may hence well justify that the goal which has initially been set and which directs the subject’s actions has never truly been something the subject themselves desired, or at least not on their own terms. And what’s more, that once the subject is led to the belief that this is their own desire, then the illusion is formed that they like working for it!
This is what happens when the goal is based on some sort of idealisation, that is to say a formed ideal image of myself, a future perfect version of me, the one I would like to be and thus I am currently not. “I am not”, signifies that one is negated when they identify with that image: losing any sort of presence in their life by being absorbed into the perfection of the image of a future self.
Trying to become a better version of oneself towards ideality means that the ideal image only motivates work that comes with the promise of some payback, i.e. to be rewarded with something that will complete their image of perfection. Within that discourse there is anticipation that one will be able to get enjoyment once the requirements of the ideal are fulfilled. Consequently, if the reward is not received, the body suffers because the promised object of payback is not received and the image remains incomplete, in other words, fragmented. But isn’t it an oxymoron that the body is experienced as heavy when a part is missing? Why does this happen? Because one is unable to perceive the whole operation of the ideal, namely, that what is experienced as missing from one’s body is not the lack of any anticipated object but the excess of labour itself, i.e. the expended effort towards the ideal; it is precisely because of this effort that one demands compensation. The subject is caught in a vicious circle, stemming from the fact that an ideal image is introjected as one’s true identity. Vicissitudes come by definition in one’s life once the establishment of the ideal image takes place.
How could all this be simplified more, if not by saying that one demands payment only when working for someone other than themselves! The subject is so consumed and absorbed in this process, that in the statement “I am doing this for myself”, the self does not even refer to themselves as a subject but to how they are objectified for some Other who nominates and thus chooses the ideal that the subject takes as their identity: this is precisely the heaviness in taking (i.e. taking the identity of the ideal) which produces the effect of an image of the body that is missing something. As such, the ideal represents the Other incarnating the ‘law’ or ‘rules’ that conduct (a great synonym for order) the subject’s direction of work, and from whom the reward is demanded.
Psychoanalyst Petros Patounas describes true desire as “asking nothing from no one”. Indeed, working towards one’s own desire does not have any reward as its aim, that is to say any object that would complete their body and bring enjoyment, because the very act of working is what makes heaven and defines the body (Patounas calls this mode of being ErgOn). It is an enjoyment independent of the Other. The expectation of a reward only comes when someone acts according to rules for trade, whereby a certain measure is applied as a unit of exchange that defines the fair compensation for the subject’s sacrifice. A sacrifice of what? That of their desire: The subject demands a reward as compensation for giving up their own desire. This of course shouldn’t be misinterpreted as “I do not give, because I don’t want to get anything back from anyone”, because it is still caught up in the discourse of fair exchange: “I don’t give” is in this case related to “I don’t get… a fair exchange”.
And, if this is pushed to an extreme, if one declares that something they want is of their own desire but they do nothing to achieve it, or find all sorts of excuses while blaming others, then not only is it not their desire, because blaming others means they ask others for something, but they also demand to be instantly rewarded for exchanging their subjectivity with the idealised image they believe they want.
An honourable statement against the anticipation of life in a future self, would be something that one usually hears in the aforesaid motivational quotes, but which is mostly derived from eastern thought, that one should live in the present. There is a nice play on words here whereby people in their ideal and perfect image lose their present, in both its meanings: the present as temporal and the present as gift. Gift is a nice word for the reward itself, the gift of life. Yet, this quote is often misinterpreted into another idealisation whereby one may short-circuit the ideal image into a demand to acquire absolute enjoyment now as if there is no tomorrow, which is to say that everything will end. What an ideal way to reach a goal! True present is timeless, a never ending one.
It isn’t hard for someone to distinguish what is aligned with their desire from that which is caught up in an ideal, because the experience of their effects on the body speaks for itself: Desire is about aligning one’s actions to whatever supports their breath just by doing it, that is to say, their very act is their own breath. For example, if there is any sort of pressure in helping or serving a fellow person, then there is a hidden expectation of respect and reward, even if this reward is expected from the justice of a God.
Christian tradition in its own terms uses the word Theosis (Θέωσις) to describe the destination of all humans, the ultimate goal, whereby one becomes a god. This is a goal beyond any idealisation, because one can only become a god when their deeds do not demand any reward from (any form of) God. And it is certain at this point that the original sin, i.e. eating the fruit that would make one a god, has been from the beginning all about aiming at the deification of oneself that has nothing to do with ‘Τheosis’ – a magnificent word for ‘Desire’ –, but with the assimilation of the object that would complete one’s ideal image to perfection.
'Adam and Eve'. Illustration by Stella Violari,
illustrator of the book The Image of a Voice
