To say that desire is mimetic / is to say / that it's imitative. / We look to models / of desire. / People that help show us / what is worth / wanting. / There's kind of a certain humility needed / to understand that, / "I'm the product of other people's desires, / starting with my parents, / starting with the friends that I had when I was a kid.” / We continue that process of mimetic desire / well into adulthood, / where it goes / underground and becomes a lot more hidden than it is / when we're children. // There are two kinds of desire, / thin and thick. / Thick desires are like these layers of rock / that have been built up throughout the course of our lives. // These are desires that can be shaped and cultivated through models like our parents and / people that we admire / as children. / But at some level, / they're related to the core of who we are. / They can be related to perennial human truths: / truth, / beauty, / goodness, / human dignity. / Every human being has them. / What I call thin desires are / highly mimetic and ephemeral desires. / They're the things that can be here today, / gone tomorrow. / They're subject to the winds of mimetic change, / because they're not rooted in a layer of ourselves that's been built up over time. / I think of thin desires like a layer of leaves that's sitting on top of layers of rock. / Those thin desires are blown away / with a light gust of wind. / A new model comes into our life; / the old desires are gone.