It never fails. When walking Mabel, our dog, she seems convinced that the most interesting thing she will ever sniff is just beyond the reach of her six-foot leash. She pulls and pulls, craning her neck to go just a bit farther. It it can’t be comfortable. Yet, she wants to badly to go beyond where she is able, to find the best scent ever.
I laugh–most of the time, anyway—knowing that if the leash were 8-feet long. She’d want to get to a clump of grass that 8 feet 2 inches away. Dumb dog, right? Except, I’m pretty sure I do the same thing. You?
Many of us spend our lives striving for something we’re convinced will bring us complete satisfaction. We have a sense of what my favorite philosopher Peter Rollins calls ‘the lack.’
Life for many of us feels incomplete. We have desires for love, a car, job satisfaction, meaning, dinner. From the pedantic to the profound, we sense that there is something out there that will bring us a better life, a sense of completeness. Something that will fill the void. If only we could get that, we would be complete–without lack.
Object a
When Rollins talks about the thing we desire he calls is ‘Object a.’ I understand this label comes from his favorite philosopher Jacques Lacan, a 20th century, French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who talked about objet petit a. Object a is that elusive thing just beyond the reach of the leash that will bring us satisfaction. The problem, Rollins shares, is that Object a doesn’t exist.
Satisfaction of our ‘lack,’ is a never-ending pursuit. We’ve all experienced that moment soon after acquiring what we thought was our Object a, only to see something else, just a little further out, that will make life even more satisfying. Surely that new thing will do the trick.
Embracing the lack
Thankfully, we will never find our Object a because the pursuit, anticipation, the lack itself, is what gives life meaning. That’s why we like Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day; why our careers bring us so much satisfaction; why I spent hours combing discount racks in 90s record stores trying to complete my Chicago cassette collection. It’s joy of learning, pursuit, and practice–whether it’s working toward that promotion, trying to make the greatest cup coffee, or practicing Terry Kath guitar solo.
When we learn to embrace the lack, we can enjoy the pursuit. We can shoot 80 on the front 9 and still look forward to doing better on the back. We can go to one more record store hoping beyond hope they have the last Chicago cassette we need, while simultaneously kinda hoping it’s not there so we will get to keep looking in more record stores.
Enjoy the journey
Standing on the sidewalk with the leash stretched to its fullest length, I wish I could explain this to Mabel. That smell just out of reach is just her Object a, and it’s not going to bring her the complete satisfaction she desires. But then again, unlike me, she already enjoys the pursuit of the next scent, bird, rabbit, human… whatever is out there.
So I write this for myself as a reminder that whenever I find myself at the end of my leash—discouraged because I can’t get to the thing I’m convinced will fix everything—to embrace the lack and enjoy the journey.
Possible counter-argument that makes me laugh. From the movie ‘Good Fortune.’