Desire is far more mysterious than first appears, and this is probably because it precedes any notions of self or identity. As neonates we begin in a stormy climate of communicable wantings which is somewhat tamed and channeled through the development of a mind. Identity arises in mind as a way of administering desires. They are not projections of feeling or willing but something original in which the two are not separate. The "I" is a venture at supplying a centre to this field, the product of a second-order desire in order that it can be made more effective. Thus there remains a peculiar alterity to desire. This appears in at least two different ways. One is that desire is not instrumental, doesn't serve something desirable in itself, but precedes and defines the desirable. As far as instrumentality goes, it is you that are the instrument. On the other hand while desire comes from elsewhere it yet embodies all that is free in you. Moderns speak of desire instead of desires. The idea of it is linked with authenticity, it is beyond the law. Your true self is revealed through your desires, through the expression rather than the repression of them, sacredly antinomian. Identity is both created and undone by desire. Desire is something greater than you are, and implicitly challenges: 'Do you have the courage of your desires?' There is a jargon of desire like there once was a jargon of authenticity. Mimetic, eminently transmissable, the quality of desire can dissolve the boundary between authentic and inauthetic. Desire functions somewhat like entropy in physics, it provides the arrow of time. Consciousness would be reversable if it weren't for the directionality of desire. It is the engine propelling you forward and it is destroyed in being enacted. And when it is burnt up all that remains is desire for desire.