Zizek on desire for the lost object and on drive as the loss of any object at all:
“The weird movement called “drive” is not driven by the “impossible” quest for the lost object; it is a drive to directly enact the “loss” - the gap, cut, distance - itself. There is thus a distinction to be drawn between the lost object-cause of desire and the object-loss of the drive. This is what Lacan means by the “satisfaction of the drives”: a drive does not bring satisfaction because its object is a stand-in for the Thing, but because a drive turns failure into triumph - in it, the very failure to reach its goal, the repetition of this failure, generates a satisfaction of its own. The drive is a counter-movement to desire, it does not strive towards impossible fullness and then, being forced to renounce it, get stuck onto a partial object as its remainder.
(art by kris knight)
