Desire to have and desire to be are inseparable routes to one goal

Evidence

We have seen that desire can be originally either the desire to be or the desire to have. But the desire to have is not irreducible. While the desire to be bears directly on the for-itself and has the project of conferring on it without intermediary the dignity of in-itself-for-itself, the desire to have aims at the for-itself on, in and through the world. It is by the appropriation of the world that the project to have aims at realizing the same value as the desire to be. That is why these desires, which can be distinguished by analysis, are in reality inseparable. It is impossible to find a desire to be which is not accompanied by a desire to have, and conversely. Fundamentally we have to do with two ways of looking toward a single goal, or if you prefer, with two interpretations of the same fundamental situation, the one tending to confer being on the For-itself without detour, the other establishing the circuit of selfness; that is, inserting the world between the for-itself and its being. As for the original situation, it is the lack of being which I am; that is, which I make myself be. But the being of which I make myself a lack is strictly individual and concrete; it is the being which exists already and in the midst of which I arise as being its lack. Thus the very nothingness which I am is individual and concrete, as being this nihilation and not any other. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1385

Categorization

• XREF: The circuit of selfness and lack-of-being structure here connect directly to Beauvoir’s reworking of desire and need in The Second Sex. Also resonates with Lacan’s desire as lack. — connects to: Desire has a double determination toward being and toward appropriating concrete objects — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1363; The desire to do ultimately reduces to a desire to be; The desire to possess aims at unity with the object (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies the technical relation between the two fundamental desires — that to-have reduces to to-be via appropriation of the world.
• DEEPTHINKING: The move that ‘the nothingness which I am’ is itself individual and concrete — nihilation is not generic but this specific lack — is a dense, paradigm-shifting claim about how freedom individualizes.

Broader Connections

• Habit etymologically converts having into a way of being #exemplifies (0.90) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 384
• Possession in desire is a double reciprocal incarnation of both bodies #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 978
• Action and passion are inseparable reciprocal effects #corroborates (0.80) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 438