“Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.” — René Girard.

Think about which desires you really want to own and cultivate. It doesn’t matter whether they were originally mimetic or not – the intentionality that you bring to them can allow you to become the author of a new creation.

It’s revealing to think of mimetic desire along a continuum. Certain people and organizational cultures are more prone to mimesis than others. And one thing is clear, on a societal level: any society in which people are no longer struggling with scarcity but coping with abundance will undergo an explosion of mimetic desire. In this universe of... See more