Will, Desire and Object

Jung raises some interesting points regarding the projection of qualities onto things (object cathexes) based on the nature of the underlying desire (libido). This suggests that there are fundamentally different types of desires, however, when in fact there is a stratification, elaboration or sublimation of the basic underlying “driving force” by virtue of its being subjected to a counterforce. In other words, desire is the basic psychic impetus, and will is the countermeasure through which application the desired object becomes evermore sophisticated.

If desire were the sole or even fundamental driving force, then it would always dictate the course of action leading to its most immediate resolution. And since there are mechanisms aplenty to facilitate this resolution (instincts), for all practical purposes desire would always be essentially proximate to its fulfillment. In fact, this is exactly the case for the “evolved psyche” (by which I do not mean a psyche that is “more evolved” than others, but rather the psyche that is the product of biological and social evolutionary forces and therefore constructed of behavioural instincts, what we might describe as the “material core”). So while there unquestionably is a desire which is a desire projected outward, there must also be another desire which is the desire not to accede to the proximate fulfillment of the projected desire.

It is possible that the fulfillment of primitive or primordial desire involves a regression into the infantile/archetypal psyche, so that the union of desire and its object may be best described as the collision of vast but relatively undifferentiated masses of psychic energy. At the most primitive extreme is the case of the worship of or union with the divine being, which stands as the sine qua non of psychic experience while at the same time totally eludes elaboration, except through cryptics and paradox:

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”
(Donne, Batter My Heart)

But if primitive union is achieved, how does that glorify the divine (any more than it already is) or exalt and ennoble man? To put it another way, desire by definition seeks a desideratum, that is, that thing which is desirable. When the body thirsts, it seeks water, not sand. A desire is what it is. Consequently, when the desideratum appears, the desire must annihilate itself upon and within the desideratum. Moreover, desire, by its very nature, is perfect desire; it seeks what is most perfect, and what will most perfectly fulfill it. (This is basically what Plato recognized when he observed that every individual always chooses what he or she believes will be good for him or herself). When we drink from the fountain of the divine, we do not expect our thirst to return.

Only to the extent that the thing was not the desideratum can the desire be reborn.