It is 2 AM and you are reorganizing the spice cabinet. You did not plan this. You came downstairs for water. And somewhere between the cumin from 2019 and the oregano, your body is asking a question your mind has not caught up to yet, something about what you are still doing here, and the life that is on the other side of all of this.

Whose desire have you been living?

What do you want out of this life?

They surface together, they are not the same question. Knowing what you want is not the same as knowing what you're building..

Takeaways:

• Desire is structural.

• Direction is existential.

• When the compass breaks, the life you were physically inhabiting reveals itself to have been built around someone else’s desire.

• The existential question is archaeological before it is forward-looking.

• You do not owe anyone an architectural review of your own life.

References: Binary Relationship Theory (BRT); Jay Whozit and the semiotic theory of betrayal; Lacan’s desire of the Other; the freakn’ middle. Frameworks drawn from Get In or Get Out, But Don’t Stay in the Freakn’ Middle and Not Anymore (forthcoming).

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