C'mon, think!
I want you to reach back into those minds and tell me, tell us all: What is it that you fantasize about? World peace? Thought so. Do you fantasize about international fame? Do you fantasize about winning a Pulitzer prize? Or a Nobel Peace prize? An MTV music award? You fantasize about meeting some genius hunk, ostensibly bad but secretly simmering with noble passion and willing to sleep on the wet spot?
I'll take two!
You get Lakan's point - fantasies have to unrealistic because the moment, the second that you get what you seek .. you don't, you can't want it anymore. In order to continue to exist desire must have its objects perpetually absent. It's no the IT that you want, it's the fantasy of IT. So desire supports crazy fantasies. This is what Pascal means when he says that we are only truly happy when daydreaming about future happiness or why we say the hunt is sweeter than the kill. Or be careful what you wish for, not because you'll get it, because you're doomed not to want it once you do. So, the lesson of Lakan is: Living by your wants will never make you happy. What it means to be fully human is to strive to live by ideas and ideals and not to measure your life by what you've attained in terms of your desires but those small moments of integrity, compassion, rationality, even self-sacrifice. Because in the end the only way that we can measure the significance of our own lives is by valuing the lives of others.
~ The Life of David Gale
