The Cat F. and her object of desire

There is a toy the cat I live with, F., loves. A small, insignificant object by itself—a hair band—but for her, it is everything. She plays with it, run with it, and then—loses it. Again and again, it disappears under the sofa. At first, I thought it was mere accident, an unfortunate consequence of her wild enthusiasm. I would retrieve it (with difficulty, moving the whole big and heavy sofa), place it back in front of her, and she would resume the game. Then I noticed something strange: F. was not merely losing the toy—she was hiding it, pushing it carefully under the sofa and then wait. Not searching for it, not retrieving it herself, but waiting for it to come out, like a mouse.

This is the game. Not the toy, not the having of it, but the not having it—the game of waiting.

Lacan taught us that desire is not for the object itself, but for the dream of having it, and the wonderful things that it will make us feel. The objet petit a, that little elusive remainder, is not what we want, but what we want to keep wanting. It is the object-cause of desire, which structures our entire engagement with the world—not as something to be acquired, but as something always just out of reach. The moment we have it, its function collapses; its magic is gone.

The cat F. is following a Lacanian pattern without knowing it. She manufactures its disappearance, ensuring that it can continue to be desired. If I were to leave it permanently in the open, readily available, untouched by contingency, it would cease to be fascinating. Its disappearance sustains the game because the game is not about playing—it is about waiting to feel the experience of encountering the object of desire.

Humans, of course, are no different from cats. Love, ambition, knowledge—these all function under the same structure of desire. We do not crave what we have, but what we lack. The moment we obtain what we thought we wanted, a certain emptiness sets in, and the cycle resumes with a new object. The next promotion, the next lover, the next truth to be uncovered.

Unlike F., however, we often become intensely anxious and frustrated by the feeling of lack. We relentlessly pursue the object, believing that its acquisition will bring lasting satisfaction. But F.'s wisdom suggests a different approach: perhaps there is a way to embrace the inherent game of desire with a lighter touch, recognizing the pleasure in the anticipation and the ongoing engagement, rather than solely fixating on the moment of possession.

The genius of F. lies in her understanding of this principle. She waits a bit, then goes and comes back later or another day to the same spot. She does not seek to overcome lack but to sustain it, to keep it alive as the engine of her joy. It’s amazing how long she remembers the toy—sometimes weeks—and with time, she waits for it in other places, but always returns to the usual spot. In hiding her toy, she ensures its continued significance. If only we, too, could take such pleasure in the game of desire rather than in the futile attempt to resolve it.

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Further Exploration: Language and the Symbolic Order

If we follow Lacan deeper into his structuralist framework, we find that desire is not merely a product of individual longing but is shaped by the Symbolic order—the vast network of language and social structures that frame our reality. Desire is never direct; it is mediated through words, through signifiers that create meaning but also defer fulfillment.

F.’s game is not just about the absence of the toy, but about its inscription in a system of meaning—its transformation from a mere object into a signifier of lack. The fact that cats dream and play, is for me a prove that there is a kind of symbolic order, primitive, limited, but a symbolic they understand and in it, the petit object a appears. In the same way, human desire is structured through language, always pointing beyond itself. We name what we want, but the act of naming itself ensures that the object of desire remains elusive. Just as F. waits for the toy to return, we wait for the fulfillment that language perpetually postpones.

So, the next time you find yourself caught in the relentless pursuit of the next thing, perhaps take a moment to consider F.'s game. Could there be a way to find more joy in the dance of desire itself, in the anticipation and the reaching, rather than solely in the fleeting moment of acquisition? What might it look like to embrace the waiting with a bit more curiosity and a little less obsession?