Between Lack and Longing

An essay on need, desire, craving and longing

Human beings are never simply present in the world. We are constantly moving toward something. We need something, desire something, crave something, or long for something. These movements may resemble one another, and in concrete life they can be difficult to distinguish. Yet they express different ways of being directed toward the world.

I will call them expressions of life.

Not because they constitute four fixed categories, but because they may help us see something that is otherwise easily overlooked: that whatever we do always arises from some kind of relationship to something that is not ourselves.

Need

Need is the most fundamental of these movements. I need food when I am hungry, sleep when I am tired, and warmth when I am cold. Need expresses a lack that seeks satisfaction.

In this sense, need has a clear direction: from lack toward fulfilment.

But human needs are never merely biological. Even the food we need belongs to a human world of taste, habits, fellowship, and meaning. I may be hungry, but what I eat, how I eat, and whom I eat with are not determined by biology alone.

This makes need philosophically interesting. Human beings have needs, but human beings also live their needs.

Need is therefore not necessarily as simple as it first appears. The biological need may be fundamental, but the human expression of that need is already shaped by a life lived with others.

Desire

Desire has a different character.

I may desire a cup of coffee, a book, a journey, or a walk in the sun. Desire is a movement toward something that appears good, pleasant, interesting, or attractive.

Desire does not have to be connected to lack. I may be full and still desire a piece of cake. I may be content with my life and still desire to travel somewhere I have never been.

Desire therefore opens a space between what is necessary and what is possible.

This space is important for the art of living. Human life is not only about maintaining life. It is also about what we do with the life we have been given.

Desire says:

I would like this.

Craving

Craving goes a step further.

I do not merely want something. Something has acquired such significance for me that I become directed toward it. What I crave does not merely appear attractive; it becomes something I must relate to.

Craving has a long philosophical history. In Plato, eros becomes a movement toward what one does not possess. In Hegel, desire becomes connected to our relationship with the other and to the need for recognition. Later, desire is understood in different ways as a movement that cannot simply be brought to an end by attaining its object.

The latter is important.

I can obtain what I crave—and still crave more.

Craving can therefore be distinguished from need. Need seeks a satisfaction that can bring the lack to an end. Craving, by contrast, can reproduce itself. What I obtain may become the starting point for the next thing I want.

Craving can therefore also acquire power over us.

What began as something I wanted can gradually become something around which I organize my life.

This is where Kierkegaard becomes interesting. For him, human beings are not merely beings who want things. We also relate to ourselves: to who we want to be, what we want to become, and how we want to live.

Craving can therefore move from wanting to have to wanting to be.

And here we begin to approach longing.

Longing

Longing has a different character.

I may long for a person, a place, or a time that is gone. But I may also long for something I have never had. I may long for peace, meaning, intimacy, or belonging without being able to point to a particular object and say: This is what I need.

Longing is therefore not necessarily directed toward an object that can be conquered.

It can be an openness toward something I cannot fully grasp.

Here we approach Martin Buber's thinking about I and Thou. A Thou cannot be reduced to an It. The other can be encountered, but not possessed; be close, but not turned into a thing that I can control.

Longing can have something of the same structure.

It points toward something that matters to me, but which loses something of its character precisely if I try to make it mine.

This distinguishes longing from craving as we normally use the word. Craving wants to grasp. Longing can live with the fact that what it seeks cannot be grasped.

That does not make longing weaker.

Perhaps it makes it stronger.

Four movements

The four expressions of life can now be seen as different ways of being directed toward something.

Need seeks what is lacking and must be satisfied.

Desire is drawn toward what appears good and attractive.

Craving is directed toward something that has acquired such significance that it can begin to govern me.

Longing opens toward something that cannot necessarily be possessed or brought to an end.

These are not four steps on a ladder.

We can move between them in the course of a single day.

I may need food, desire something delicious, crave recognition, and long for intimacy. Nor is it necessarily the case that I myself know which of these movements is actually driving me.

And perhaps this is precisely where practical philosophy begins.

Pausing between impulse and action

We live in a culture that rapidly turns needs into wants and wants into cravings.

What initially appears as I would like this can soon become I must have this. Advertising, social media, and consumer culture largely depend upon this transformation.

But it happens outside consumerism as well.

I may think that I need recognition when what I am really longing for is to be seen.

I may try to satisfy a longing for intimacy by accumulating things.

I may pursue a craving for achievement when what I am really seeking is dignity.

The practical-philosophical question is therefore not primarily:

How can I get what I want?

A more important question may be:

What is actually moving me?

Is this a need?

A desire?

A craving?

Or a longing?

Being able to distinguish between these is not the same as controlling them. Nor is it a matter of suppressing desire or craving. It is about becoming attentive to the difference between them.

For perhaps a form of freedom lies precisely here:

in being able to pause for a moment between what moves me and what I do.

Life does not necessarily become less desirous or less full of longing because of this.

But it may become a little more visible.

And perhaps this is one of the simplest and most difficult tasks of the art of living: to learn the difference between what I need, what I desire, what I crave, and what I long for.

Perhaps this is one of the simplest and most difficult tasks of the art of living: to learn the difference between what I need, what I desire, what I crave, and what I long for.

This essay was written in a conversation with OpenAI/ChatGPT