Narrator: Imagine you’ve spent years building a company from the ground up. It’s been a grueling journey, and now, in the midst of a financial crisis, you’re on the verge of collapse. Then, a lifeline appears. A celebrated company, Zappos, led by the visionary Tony Hsieh, wants to acquire you. The deal is all but done. You feel an immense wave of relief and excitement. But just as you’re celebrating, the phone rings. The deal is off. The board changed their minds. In that moment of crushing defeat, what would you feel? Devastation? Anger? For entrepreneur Luke Burgis, the author of Wanting, the overwhelming emotion was something entirely unexpected: relief. This bizarre reaction plunged him into a deep inquiry, forcing him to ask a fundamental question: why do we want the things we want?

In his book, Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life, Burgis unpacks this mystery, drawing on the profound work of French philosopher René Girard. He reveals that our desires are not our own. They are imitated, borrowed, and absorbed from the world around us in a process Girard called mimetic desire. Understanding this hidden force is the key to navigating our ambitions, relationships, and the very structure of our modern world.

Narrator: The foundational idea of Wanting is that human desire operates like a kind of social gravity. We don't simply choose our wants in a vacuum; we learn them by imitating others. Girard discovered this not in a lab, but by studying the great works of literature. He saw that characters in novels rarely desire something on their own. Instead, their desire is mediated by a "model"—another character who shows them what is worth wanting. We are all subject to this law. Our desires are triangular, not linear. There is the self, the object of desire, and most importantly, the model who makes that object desirable.

This concept was a revelation for billionaire investor Peter Thiel. While a student at Stanford, Thiel was a driven, conventional success, but he felt a deep unease. He noticed that all his brilliant peers were converging on the same few career paths, like law and finance. It wasn't until he encountered the teachings of René Girard that he understood why. They were all caught in a mimetic trap, imitating each other's ambitions without questioning their origin. Thiel realized that his own desires were not truly his. This understanding allowed him to break free from the herd, co-found PayPal, and make a legendary early investment in Facebook, a company he recognized as a perfect engine for mimetic desire. He later said of his bet on Facebook, "I bet on mimesis."

Narrator: According to Burgis, not all models are created equal. They operate in two distinct worlds. The first is "Celebristan," the realm of models who are far outside our own social sphere. These are historical figures, celebrities, or distant mentors. We can imitate their desires—to be a great artist like Picasso or an innovator like Steve Jobs—without any risk of conflict. The distance is too great for rivalry.

The second world, however, is "Freshmanistan." This is the world of our peers, colleagues, friends, and rivals—the people in our immediate orbit. Here, mimetic desire is dangerous. When we want what our neighbor wants, we are no longer just imitating; we are competing. The model becomes an obstacle, and desire quickly turns into rivalry. This is where the most intense and often destructive human conflicts arise.

A tragic example of Freshmanistan's dynamic is the East Coast vs. West Coast hip-hop rivalry of the 1990s. What began as professional competition escalated into a deeply personal and violent conflict between rappers like Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. They became obsessed with each other, their desires and identities locked in a mimetic death spiral. They weren't fighting because they were different, but as Girard would say, because they had become too similar, transformed into enemy twins by their shared desires for status, respect, and dominance.

Narrator: When mimetic rivalry in Freshmanistan spreads through a community, it can lead to a crisis of social order. To prevent self-destruction, societies throughout history have unconsciously invented a powerful social technology: the scapegoat mechanism. When tensions rise, the community collectively and often irrationally identifies a single person or group as the source of all their problems. By uniting in blame and expelling or destroying this scapegoat, the community purges its internal violence and restores a temporary peace.

Ancient Greek societies practiced this through the pharmakos ritual, where a social outcast—a slave or a criminal—was publicly blamed for a plague or famine and then ritually expelled or killed to cleanse the city. The key to the mechanism's success is that everyone believes the scapegoat is truly guilty. The Bible, however, disrupts this by telling the story from the victim's perspective, as in the story of Joseph and his brothers or the crucifixion of Jesus, revealing the scapegoat's innocence and the injustice of the mob. This, Girard argues, is what makes our modern concern for victims possible, though it also creates new dangers of competitive victimhood.

Narrator: If we are constantly imitating the desires of others, how can we ever want something authentic? Burgis distinguishes between "thin" and "thick" desires. Thin desires are the fleeting, superficial wants we absorb mimetically. They are often about status, trends, and what others will think. They are unstable and leave us unfulfilled. Thick desires, in contrast, are the desires that are deeply rooted in our values and personal history. They are the desires we would still hold even if no one else knew about them.

The journey to a fulfilling life is the journey from thin to thick desires. This requires an anti-mimetic stance—not an opposition to all imitation, but a conscious effort to step outside of the systems of desire that trap us. Chef Sébastien Bras provides a powerful example. His restaurant, Le Suquet, had held three Michelin stars, the highest honor in the culinary world. Yet, Bras felt the pressure to maintain the stars was stifling his creativity and consuming his life. In 2017, he did the unthinkable: he asked to be removed from the Michelin Guide, giving back his stars. He chose the thick desire of creative freedom and family life over the thin, mimetic desire for institutional prestige.

Narrator: Leaders, whether in business, politics, or education, are fundamentally shapers of desire. Burgis contrasts two types of leadership. Immanent leaders trap desire within a closed system, making everything about themselves and internal competition. This creates a "Gravitron" effect, where everyone is stuck spinning in circles, focused on rivals within the organization.

Transcendent leaders, however, point to a goal outside the system. They model a desire for something greater, something that "transcends" the immediate rivalries. President John F. Kennedy did this with his "Moon Shot" speech. He didn't just set a goal; he inspired a nation to yearn for the vast and endless sea of space exploration. He chose the goal not because it was easy, but because it was hard, and in doing so, he organized and elevated the desires of millions. Transcendent leaders don't just manage people; they cultivate thick desires and direct them toward a purpose that lifts everyone's gaze.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Wanting is that while we cannot escape mimetic desire, we can become conscious of it. The default state of humanity is to live an unintentionally mimetic life, chasing desires we never deliberately chose. The alternative is to do the hard work of introspection: to identify our models, question our goals, and intentionally cultivate the thick desires that lead to a meaningful life.

The book leaves us with a profound and challenging question, first posed by the historian Yuval Noah Harari. As technology gives us the power to engineer our very wants, the critical question is no longer "What do we want to become?" but rather, "What do we want to want?" Your answer to that question will determine not only your own future, but the kind of world we collectively build.