Want vs. Desire

[jomar]

There is a great difference between the two words, especially in their lexicological history (at least in English).

WANT originally meant a lack, a deficiency, deprivation. Its use became more common to simply state mundane wants: food, Mommy, money, a fuck, etc.

DESIRE was always, lexicologically, linked to feelings and emotions, yearnings, cravings; especially to things that would bring pleasure or other heightened satisfactions. As a noun it is a synonym for 'lust'. As a verb it implies a strong wish, a more than usual want of something (or someone).

Well put, since that's basically what I was going to say until called away.

 

[shereads]

Wants, like fashions, come and go. Desires haunt us.

You can cure a want. Want M&M's? Eat them until you can't stand the sight of them. Want a new car? Got one, and I'm bored with it already, after months of imagining how it would improve my life.

But a desire can never be sated. It can be temporarily assuaged, but might return even stronger.

Maybe that's the key: we desire what we either can't have, or can have only in teasing amounts. No amount of money or effort can aquire the object of desire. It has to come to us; it has to want us back.

 

[gauchecritic]

Wants, like fashions, come and go. Desires haunt us.

She uses her mouth pertier than a $10 whore.

 

[shereads]

She uses her mouth pertier than a $10 whore.

$20, Father Seamus. Same as downtown.