This week I was reminded of a powerful idea that I wanted to share.

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Christmas 2016 I received a book that changed the course of my life. ​

I heard about the book from Ryan Holiday, who heard about it from Peter Thiel, who heard the ideas directly from the author, Rene Girard, a professor at Stanford.

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The book introduced me to a powerful idea:

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Desire is not self-generated, but copied from others.

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Beneath all physical desire is metaphysical desire.

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We desire an object because deep down we desire to become the individual who has the object.

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We desire the sports car because we want to be the type of person who drives a sports car.

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Wealthy.

Confident.

Admired.

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We desire traits of being, and we incorrectly assume that physical objects, like talismans, will confer the desired traits on us.

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Girard believed desire was Mimetic, or imitative.

We copy to become, to mime others.

This makes desire antithetical to a individuality, to any sense of identity.

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We often think of things we want.

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But we don't think about who we want to become.

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Being is always taken for granted.

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We assume it will just magically happen once we possess the object.

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But we can acquire the things and never become the person we want to be.

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We can acquire things without changing.

Buddhism diagnosis desire as the route of all suffering.

And the mechanism of mimetic desire helps us understand why desire produces suffering in the individual and war in the collective.

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So I was happy to see Luke Burgis write a book distilling Girard's concepts in accessible form.

And to hear Luke sit down with Ryan Holiday to talk more about Mimetic Desire. ​

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Highly recommend everyone at least look into Rene Girard's ideas on desire.

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I've found mimetic theory to be a powerful razor for culling my own desires.

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It acts as a spotlight, exposing the true source of my desires.

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Often, when I see what it is I'm actually after, it's enough to dispel the acquisitive energy altogether.

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But the simplest solution to mimetic desire and the covetous energy it creates is just to "tend to one's own garden".

Spend time thinking on what you have, and express gratitude for those things.

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And express gratitude for your own traits, the things that make you you.

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It's not an antidote to mimetic desire.

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But it does help to manage the condition.

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Another technique is to go back.

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Go back and remember who you were when you were very young.

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Earliest memories.

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Spend time writing down the story of your life, what you remember, what you experienced, what you liked, what you disliked.

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It's a powerful exercise for rediscovering and developing that kernel of authentic self we tend to lose touch with as we age.

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The most interesting, most successful people have the capacity to understand that unique kernel of self, and maintain an airtight connection to it.

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Nothing comes between them and them.

That's it for this week.

Phillip