Love and desire

“If people were told: what makes carnal desire imperious in you is not its pure carnal element. It is the fact that you put into it the essential part of yourself—the need for Unity, the need for God—they wouldn’t believe it. To them it seems obvious that the quality of imperious need belongs to the carnal desire as such. In the same way it seems obvious to the miser that the quality of desirability belongs to gold as such, and not to its exchange value.”—Simone Weil

A desire comes from nature, and to obey it is to obey nature, to acquiesce in the role of created being. But the neighbor’s desire is as much a part of nature as my own. To satisfy my own while leaving his unsatisfied ceases to be an act of reverence to nature. It becomes instead an act of rebellion against it. Unlike the ascetic’s rebellion, however, it is hard to imagine this being a rebellion on behalf of something higher. Desire can retain its innocence only so long as it is no more imperious than love.