Desire seeks self-coincidence that structural impossibility guarantees vanishing upon fulfillment.

Evidence

This point of view is very late and reflective—like that of the man who drinks to get rid of his thirst, like that of the man who goes to brothels to get rid of his sexual desire. Thirst, sexual desire, in the unreflective and naive state want to enjoy themselves; they seek that coincidence with self which is satisfaction, where thirst knows itself as thirst at the same time that the drinking satisfies it, when by the very fact of its fulfillment it loses its character as lack while making itself be thirst in and through the satisfaction. Thus Epicurus is right and wrong at the same time; in itself indeed desire is an emptiness. But no non-reflective project aims simply at suppressing this void. Desire by itself tends to perpetuate itself; man clings ferociously to his desires. What desire wishes to be is a filled emptiness but one which shapes its repletion as a mould shapes the bronze which has been poured inside it. The possible of the consciousness of thirst is the consciousness of drinking. We know moreover that coincidence with the self is impossible, for the for-itself attained by the realization of the Possible will make itself be as for-itself—that is, with another horizon of possibilities. Hence the constant disappointment which accompanies repletion, the famous: “Is it only this?” which is not directed at the concrete pleasure which satisfaction gives but at the evanescence of the coincidence with self. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 386

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the ‘circuit of selfness’ concept and why coincidence with self is structurally impossible, giving desire a blank to be filled that always reopens.
• XREF: Directly prefigures Beauvoir’s account of desire, appetite, and the impossibility of sating the for-itself. Also the ‘Is it only this?’ disappointment connects to Freud’s perpetual dissatisfaction and Lacan’s desire as metonymy. — connects to: Desire aims at eternalizing itself rather than annihilating itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 385

Broader Connections

• Desire aims at eternalizing itself rather than annihilating itself #complicates (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 385