Thick Desire

Definition

Thick desire is a term coined by Luke Burgis in Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life (2021), building on Girard’s framework. Thick desires are those that emerge from one’s deepest values, longings, and sense of identity. They are distinguished from thin desires by their depth, persistence, and resistance to the removal of external models.

The metaphor comes from the idea of depth: thick desires go down to the roots; thin desires are shallow, surface-level.

Characteristics of Thick Desire

A thick desire:

• Persists over time — it doesn’t evaporate when the model disappears
• Survives rivalry and obstacle — it isn’t intensified by competition or diminished by success
• Is connected to your identity — it reflects something deep about who you are and what you value
• Generates fulfillment — satisfying it actually satisfies, rather than immediately generating a new desire
• Was often present early — thick desires frequently appear in childhood, before mimetic conditioning dominated

Most people have a few thick desires buried underneath many thin ones. The challenge — which Burgis calls “desire discernment” — is to distinguish them.

Why Thick Desires Are Hard to Find

Mimetic desire is relentless and often invisible. By the time we are adults, most of our desires feel authentic — they feel like our desires. Distinguishing thick from thin requires stepping back from the mimetic environment and asking: would I want this if no one else wanted it? Would I want it if I could never tell anyone about it? Would I want it if my model no longer wanted it?

These questions are harder than they seem, because our mimetic environment shapes even our self-understanding.

In Practice

Burgis suggests several practices for discovering thick desires:

• Remove the model: imagine the person you most want to impress has died or moved away. Do you still want what you wanted?
• Look to early longing: what did you want before social comparison dominated? What did you lose interest in when others didn’t share your enthusiasm?
• Notice what persists: thin desires are driven by novelty and comparison; thick desires come back even when the social incentive is removed

The goal is not to escape mimetic desire entirely — that is impossible — but to build a life oriented by thick desires rather than dominated by thin ones.