"Desire creates its own object"
About this Quote
“Desire creates its own object” is a cool dismantling of the comforting story we tell ourselves: that we want things because they are, in some objective sense, worth wanting. Harrison flips the arrow of causality. The object isn’t the origin of longing; longing is the engine that manufactures the object’s aura - its supposed inevitability, its “rightness,” even its moral alibi.
Coming from a writer steeped in confession, criticism, and the unsentimental scrutiny of women’s inner lives, the line reads as a warning about self-authored traps. Desire doesn’t just chase; it curates. It edits the world down to a single glowing target, then retrofits evidence: the fated encounter, the misunderstood partner, the life that would finally cohere if only this one thing were secured. The subtext is brutal: you may think you’re responding to reality, but you’re often responding to a story your hunger is writing in real time.
It also works because it’s economical and slightly accusatory. “Creates” suggests fabrication, not discovery; “its own” implies a closed loop, desire as a self-licking flame. In cultural terms, it’s a neat skeleton key for consumerism and romance alike: advertising doesn’t implant wants so much as give our existing restlessness a purchasable face. Harrison’s insight lands hardest where desire is treated as destiny - when wanting becomes proof, and the proof becomes the prison.
Coming from a writer steeped in confession, criticism, and the unsentimental scrutiny of women’s inner lives, the line reads as a warning about self-authored traps. Desire doesn’t just chase; it curates. It edits the world down to a single glowing target, then retrofits evidence: the fated encounter, the misunderstood partner, the life that would finally cohere if only this one thing were secured. The subtext is brutal: you may think you’re responding to reality, but you’re often responding to a story your hunger is writing in real time.
It also works because it’s economical and slightly accusatory. “Creates” suggests fabrication, not discovery; “its own” implies a closed loop, desire as a self-licking flame. In cultural terms, it’s a neat skeleton key for consumerism and romance alike: advertising doesn’t implant wants so much as give our existing restlessness a purchasable face. Harrison’s insight lands hardest where desire is treated as destiny - when wanting becomes proof, and the proof becomes the prison.
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| Topic | Deep |
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