Thalassa, the return to the sea-womb, or the nirvana principle, the return to non-existence, are both theories of desire. It is only on the surface that desire appears to embody a principle of diversion and diversity, the rebellious bird scandalising old forms including its own. Desire is a code without a cipher, but in spite of that there is still a single meaning that it endlessly rearticulates. A theory of consciousness that was not also a theory of desire would not be incomplete but flatly wrong. There is no dispute about priority, the two are dual faces of time. Consciousness is choice and there is no choice without preference, and no preference without alternatives, no alternatives without a perfect balance, endlessly rocking. Or, in other words, when you choose you first choose yourself, and what can you know of yourself but the action of time, the cycle of birth, growth, decay and death, in a single breath, in every breath.