Desires are profitable when satisfied, but there's a misalignment of incentives. As a professor, I love activating my students' desires and reminding them of their passions. Good technology and education should lead people to real experiences, like deep offline engagement and meaningful relationships. Online, thin desires dominate, but we need each other to awaken our thick desires. It's important to have friends who remind us of our passions and encourage us to pursue them. Trying to do it alone is folly in our individualistic and lonely world. Cultivating a network of good friends pursuing the real is tremendously fulfilling.
The last time we had entrepreneur, professor, and author Luke Burgis on the show, he discussed the concept of mimetic desire, which says that we want the things we want because other people want them. Since that time, Luke has continued to explore the idea of mimesis, and how to resist its negative consequences, in his Substack: Anti-Mimetic. Today on the show, Luke and I dig into these ideas and discuss ways we can step outside the tempo, cadences, and priorities that the world would foist upon us and establish our own rhythms for our lives. Luke unpacks what it means to have “thick desires” and become a “political atheist” and how these concepts can help you live a more anti-mimetic life.
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