Lacan's Thought--"False Self" and "Desire"

After being immersed in Lacan's world for a while, I feel that a lot of confusion has become clear, but it has become difficult to write it out! First, because Lacan always explores the "unconscious", it is quite difficult to "speak"; second, I still can't think of how to apply what I understand to Lacan in real life. I first try to write the part I understand so far, which can be regarded as a test of my understanding.

The most profound part of my own experience is his discussion of the "subject". In general, the "I" in our consciousness, Lacan believes that it is the "pseudo-subject" generated when the real subject enters the "symbolic world", because human consciousness and thinking can only operate in the "symbolic chain" of the "symbolic world" on (usually language, but also any "symbolic" sign). We can imagine the "meaning chain" as a lake. When the real subject enters the lake, it will cause "waves" on the water surface; the "ripples" visible on the water surface can be imagined as the content that can be perceived by thinking, The unseen fluctuations under the water's surface are the contents of the "unconscious". At this time, the "subject" that entered the lake occupies a part of the space of the lake, but because consciousness can only be carried out on the water surface, it cannot really perceive the subject, and can only feel a "void"; such a "void" forms Lacan's so-called "real world", a "real vacancy" that can never be truly understood.

These "ripples" that we feel consciously cannot really represent the "subject", but we often "mistake" these ripples as the real "me", and such "misrecognition" of the "subject" will cause various issues of thought.

To make matters worse, there is not only one "subject" on the lake, but many "subjects" are causing "ripples" at the same time; these ripples will "interfere" with each other, causing changes in the ripples, so it is difficult for the "subject" to be in this way. Identify yourself in complex "ripples". This entire lake is similar to what Lacan called the "big Other", and in order to identify himself, the subject can only keep trying to create ripples. . The back-and-forth between the subject's request and the Big Other's response forms the dialectic of "desire", and this is a repetition destined to have no end, which is why human desires are inexhaustible.

Does that sound frustrating? We are all "false selves", endlessly repeating "desires" that cannot really be realized, like Xerxesfors, constantly pushing up the mountain with huge boulders that can't stay on the top of the mountain. But such an image can be interpreted in many different ways. In the next article, I will try to sort out my current interpretation.