Lack, Love & Lust

Different formulations of what lack means--of the meaning and significance of lack--seem to have arisen in response to the question posed by our inexplicable incompleteness. One of these is the Western, Romantic formulation of the significance of our lack. The Romantics answer to lack is someone else: an 'other' who completes us; an 'other' whom we simultaneously raven and are ravened by; an 'other' whom we consume and are consumed by; an 'other' so absorbing that we cannot escape the indelible pull of their gravitational field. We are sucked in. Drawn deeper. Total goners. Done for.

The allure of this 'other,' of that someone else, can be so intense that we cannot 'help ourselves.' It is like being sucked into a vortex--a riptide of lack, love, and lust that is so damn powerful that surrender becomes our only sane option. We simply can't fight it. This 'it' us bigger than us. Fighting it only leaves us fatigued. Fighting it only leaves us exhausted.

And yet, for all of the force of attraction--the pull--there is, at the same time, a psychological dynamic of internal resistance. Yes, there is the pull of a force and power greater than the mere self alone; however, that doesn't keep us from wondering what the hell is happening to us, why we feel so 'out of control,' how come we cannot 'contain ourselves.'

That is the irony surrounding lack, love, and lust--that we both a) want to be swept away and taken up by these powerful forces associated with the Romantic, and b) are scared shitless and literally undone by exactly that which we have wished for. After all, what is it to confess that 'I need an other?' Is that not a confession of the natural limitations of the 'self?' Is that not a direct acknowledgement of some sort of inherent lack that is/can only be filled by this 'other?' Is saying 'I need you'--swallowing, with a big lump in our throat--not a confession of how someone uplifts our life; of how someone empowers, encourages, nurtures, supports, goads, highlights, and blesses our very existence?

The problem with confessing our need--our lack--in the Romantic-formulation, is that we make our vulnerability conscious. That, to me, is painful confession beneath the veneer of a night on the town: Is this person going to be the one I can't live without? Is this person the one I will not be able to get out of my head at night? Is this person the one who will remind me of just what I have been missing--of right where my greatest lack is?