On desire and some deadly sins

“…the possibility of the three most interesting deadly sins, envy, avarice and melancholy, is inscribed into the very formal structure of desire: a melancholic is unable to sustain desire in the presence of its object; a miser clings to the object, unable to consume it; an envious subject desires the object of another’s desire. So either the other man’s grass is by definition always greener than mine; or I just admire my own green grass in awe, unable to let my animals eat it; or I just gaze at it with the sad indifference of a melancholic.

These paradoxes account for the truth of stories such as the one about the farmer to whom an angel appeared and told him: ‘I will grant you a wish, whatever you want-only, beware, I will twice as much to your neighbour!’ The farmer replied, with an evil smile: ‘Take one of my eyes!’ Or the story about the poor peasant couple who sabotaged their chance of plentitude- when a fairy offered to grant them three wishes, the husband quickly blurted out: ‘A sausage on my plate!’ The angry wife snapped back: ‘You fool- may the sausage stick to your nose!’ So the final wish could only be a modest: ‘May the sausage return from the nose to the plate!’

Iraq: the borrowed kettle by Slavoj Zizek (2004)