Attachment will eat you
Attachments, mimetic theory and why you want what you want
Apr 14, 2024
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Attachment will eat you:
Attachment will eat you.
Your attachments.
Your desires.
They can be super helpful.
They can give you purpose.
Give you drive.
Give you energy.
But they can also destroy you.
They can eat you.
They can make you forget what’s important in life.
Most people don’t stop to ask themselves this -
Why do I like what I do?
Why do I desire what I want?
Why do I want a big house?
Why do I want a lot of money?
Why do I want nice things?
Why?
What’s at the root of it?
Only once you stop and ask yourself those questions do you realize this.
Your desire is not yours.
It’s someone else’s.
It’s mimetic.
A term first coined by Renee Girard, a 20th-century French philosopher.
The concept is this.
We desire things because other people do.
That’s it.
It seems simple but it’s also profound.
Why do you want what you want?
Because other people do.
As per Rene Girard - ‘man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.’
How many of your desires are your parents?
Or your friends?
Or your colleagues?
Do you only want something because someone else wants it?
This concept floored me the first time I heard it.
It forced me to ask myself questions I never asked.
Why do I want a big house?
Why do I want to make a lot of money?
Why do I want to be successful?
Mostly because of my parents.
Because of what they wanted.
Because of their goals and what they strived for.
It’s only recently did I realize that wanting someone else’s desires is a foolish game.
You can never win.
One, the desire is not yours.
And two, even when you get it, you won’t be happy.
This should be burned into everyone’s brain.
The goal won’t make you happy.
The achievement won’t make you happy.
The outcome won’t make you happy.
You only find happiness in the process.
In the work.
In the struggle.
It seems counter-intuitive but getting everything you want will not solve your problems.
It will solve a lot of your problems.
But it won’t solve all of your problems.
If you’re always attached to external things, you will always be unhappy.
Happiness comes from within.
It comes from letting go.
It comes from letting go of attachments.
Attachments to things, objects, emotions and feelings.
Those things will eat your soul if you let them.
Don’t.
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