Wanting

1. Desire is mimetic, not autonomous. Rene Girard's central claim is that we don't pick our wants from a menu of pure preferences — we copy them from models around us. What feels like an inner voice is usually an echo of someone we admire, envy, or compete with. Recognizing this dissolves the myth of the self-made desire. 2. Models come in two flavors: Celebristan and Freshmanistan. "Celebristan" models are distant — celebrities, founders, historical figures — and don't directly compete with you for the same objects. "Freshmanistan" models are peers in your immediate world, and competing with them is far more dangerous because the rivalry is personal and bidirectional. Most of the harmful mimetic energy in modern life comes from Freshmanistan. 3. Mimetic rivalry escalates and destroys judgment. When two parties imitate each other's desire for the same object, the object matters less and less and the rivalry itself becomes the point. This dynamic shows up in startups copying competitors, siblings fighting over status, and online flame wars. It produces a lot of motion and very little real progress. 4. Scapegoating is society's ancient pressure valve. Girard argued that human communities historically resolved mimetic crises by uniting against a single victim, restoring temporary peace through expulsion or violence. Modern versions — pile-ons, cancellation, ritualized blame — work the same way without the explicit blood. Seeing the pattern is the first step to refusing to participate in it. 5. Thick desires outlast thin desires. Thin desires are reactive, mimetic, and fade once acquired; thick desires are stable, formed over time, and connect to who you are at the core. Distinguishing them requires asking which past fulfillments still feel meaningful years later. Build a life around thick desires and the thin ones lose their grip. 6. Choose your models deliberately. Since you will imitate someone, the leverage point is curating who you stand near. Anti-models clarify who you don't want to become, while transcendent models pull you toward something higher than peer status. Your information diet, friend group, and workplace are all model-selection decisions. 7. Engage in "meditative" thought, not "calculating" thought. Calculating thought treats every choice as optimization for a known goal; meditative thought asks whether the goal itself is worth wanting. Mimetic culture rewards calculation and starves meditation. Reserving time for slow, contemplative reflection is how you stop sleepwalking through other people's desires. 8. Empathy is the antidote to scapegoating. The way out of mimetic rivalry is to break the symmetry — refuse to copy the rival's hatred, listen to the scapegoat, and unilaterally de-escalate. Doing this is costly in the short run but breaks cycles that no amount of "winning" ever resolves. Practically, it looks like generosity in moments engineered for retaliation.