Thin desires are eating life
88 comments
·December 16, 2025ianstormtaylor
levocardia
Same reaction - I could immediately tell this person had learned to write on Twitter (or Linkedin), not real meaty writing. I had an English professor who wrote "FORM = CONTENT" on the chalkboard; this article would send him into a fury.
xiaomai
I think it makes sense to write like this if you're intended audience is already used to consuming "thin" desire media.
wagwang
Also the ideas are just reframing the old maxim of "its not the destination, its the journey".
nrhrjrjrjtntbt
It is that but more than that. There are companies trying to profit by selling instant gratificaton.
wagwang
i have meaner names, but lets just call it nod along content
nicbou
It sounds like a Ted Talk with unnecessarily long poses to let sentences sink in. For some reason I just can't digest this sort of writing.
peanut-walrus
Is the message deep and important or was the article attempting to manipulate you into thinking it is?
OGEnthusiast
Possibly AI-generated?
luxuryballs
I really don’t like this new feeling of not knowing if what I’m reading is from a person or a machine but I can’t quantify why it bothers me. I wonder if it will be a temporary thing like in 5 years nobody will ever care again even though the chance of it being a machine might be higher.
memonkey
Didn't really come off as design-y or antithetical form and definitely not manipulating lol, maybe a little poetic or artsy fartsy. Agree that it's important and deep.
godelski
Same. It looks like the author is playing with poetry to me. They're clearly playing with the stanza with the similar lines and the contrasting lines. Yeah, it's amateur, but who cares? It tracks with the message.
If anything I think the GP's comment is an example of a thin desire. Being nitpicky/petty to justify internalizing and actually reading the post. There's no lines to read between here, it's plain as day. We are addicted to dismissing things because it's gratifying and easy. It's trivial to find errors or complaints about anything, but it's difficult to actually critique. I'd argue in our thin desires we've conflated the two. It's cargo cult intellectualism. Complaints look similar to critiques in form but they lack the substance, the depth.
clowncubs
This resonates. I work in web dev, and a little over 2 years ago I hit a wall. Everything was a screen. All day at work, at home, on the go. Everything felt hallow and unrewarding. I'm an introvert, so outside of my family, I didn't have many relationships. Of course, I was depressed. I began working on it by going to therapy and then one day I decided to try sculpting.
This changed everything. I found I was pretty good at it. It felt good because it was tangible, and it required me to learn and probe and practice. I kept at it. This grew in ways I couldn't imagine.
Now, I make collectible resin maquettes and busts and I even started making latex halloween masks. It's been a crazy journey to where I am now, with so much more ahead. I've met people and interact with people in ways I didn't just a short time ago. It's changed my life. It's thick. All of it.
agumonkey
Kudos on your evolution. But this gets me thinking, remember when computing didn't felt "thin" ? even screen had a different feel. I don't know if it's our brain getting used and losing a kind of magic filter.
Anyway, I should probably imitate you, every time I see some people crafting real things I have a little blip of envy.
clowncubs
It definitely felt different to me in the beginning years. I've been at the web thing for about 12 years now. In the beginning, while it was often very difficult, there was an excitement and freshness. It could have simply been because we were moving to web 2.0, CSS and all of its "magic".
While making stuff is only a side thing, it makes the grind during the week tolerable. I feel like I have something meaningful in my life (outside of my family) and it has given me purpose. I'm grateful for it. And it is so damn fun!
DarmokJalad1701
> The yeast doesn't care about your schedule.
> The dough will rise when it rises, indifferent to your optimization.
Joke's on them! I run my oven until the temperature inside is ~100F - about a minute or so. Then I turn it off and set the dough in there along with some water (for humidity). It rises super fast compared to my kitchen which is ~65F in the winter and the bread is just as flavorful. Definitely not indifferent to my optimization.
jmathai
I found this trick for store bought pizza dough as well. Instead of leaving out for 20 minutes, a warm oven helps it start rising a bit and results in a much better final product!
IceCoffe
Im just learning this is a thing, tell me more, how long do you leave it in there? Any ratio's you use?
dmoy
How long to leave in depends on the dough, but you can get a quick rise in like less than an hour in the right temperature. Definitely don't leave it too long. I routinely forget and then it rises too much and eventually collapses when you go to bake it.
I use like 65% or maybe 70% hydration for bread, little more for whole wheat. Like 25:1 sugar (or less?), 100:1 salt, 100:1 yeast. High protein flour if you can.
For just basic bread, no sourdough, not a sandwich loaf, etc.
lukevp
Yep, some ovens (like mine) even have a Proof setting that keeps it at 100 degrees F automatically, for as long as you want. We make a lot of bread is how I know this
JohnMakin
> We're hungry for more, but we have more than we need.
I do not have more than I need. Very much the opposite - despite making a decent living, I cannot afford the bulk of my medical care that makes my life a lot more comfortable and extends my lifespan. making ends meet is sometimes difficult.
> We're hungry for less, while more accumulates and multiplies.
See above.
> We're hungry and we don't have words to articulate why.
I can articulate why, and a lot of it has to do with the protestant work ethic hell we've decided runs the entire world.
> We're hungry, and we're lacking and we're wanting.
Ok, finally I agree.
> We are living with a near-universal thin desire: wanting something that cannot actually be gotten, that we can't define, from a source that has no interest in providing it.
I am pretty sure what I am wanting - security, healthcare, housing, food, reliable work/career can be defined, and can be gotten.
> The person who checks their notifications is, afterward, exactly the same person who wanted to check their notifications five minutes ago.
Trivial counterexample and one that has happened to me - "Your father has had no pulse for 30 minutes, you need to get to the ER immediately." Definitely wasn't the same person 5 minutes after that. Or even, "Your role has been made redundant, please return your equipment to IT staff." Can probably think of many others.
This seems like fluffery that ultimately isn't saying much or anything at all really. Of course, in an economy full of thin fulfillment supply (such as the examples given in the writing here - porn, social media, etc.) and lacking in thick fulfillment (loneliness epidemic, bad economy if you're not on the tippy top of it, etc.), people will reach for thin ones. You can't wish or grind or hustle your way out of some of this, it is systemic, and in that, I agree with the conclusion here. I just don't believe it really accomplishes much of anything. There are those of us alive who aren't really even that old that remember the world when it was not this way.
assemblyman
Even with thick desires, I sometimes find myself day-dreaming about the state when I have mastered a skill or understood a topic deeply. At the same time, I know from experience that the process never ends. Even when one does master a skill, one is deeply aware of what one doesn't know or understand or what one is not good at within that domain.
What helps me is to focus on today. If I can spend even an hour on a topic and get lost in it or even get frustrated by it, it is time well-spent. I was going to say "it is progress" instead of "time well-spent" but even that's a trap. Progress implies moving forward in a preferred direction. While I can't say I don't want to make progress, I am training myself to care less about it. It is really the time spent engaging that's most valuable (at least to me).
neom
You might find this interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up%C4%81d%C4%81na and https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/bhavatanha
nrhrjrjrjtntbt
Oh yeah decades in I still feel I know f-all about programming. Doesn't help the field keeps expanding expintentially. E.g. I look most things up. I am basicially a slow LLM!
mtalantikite
This is a core concept of Buddhism, called tanha, and has been contemplated for a couple thousand years at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%E1%B9%87h%C4%81
francisofascii
This also sounds like one of the core themes of Augustinian philosophy. The idea of the "restless heart" in that we are never satisfied with earthly wants and desires.
agumonkey
Everything new is old :)
dddw
Interesting. Looked fornthe simple English version, alas.
moultano
I wrote this following a similar line of thought, but with the root problem being a collective action problem around community rather than an internal psychological tradeoff between short and long term. https://moultano.wordpress.com/2025/12/09/the-dead-weight-lo...
I certainly think hijacking our short term rewards is a big part of it, but in addition, that hijacking prevents people from putting in the effort that make collective alternatives competitive.
Twixes
Halfway the this post, I realized checking the HN front page was merely a thin desire – so I'm off to read a book. Farewell!
xg15
I have bad news to you - you're not even just "checking" HN, you're simulating social interaction by writing comments for no one in particular.
skeeter2020
Like relationships I don't think it's either/or but rather prioritize. Make the book a priority, and make sure you do it, then go ahead and read/comment on HN. The extra knowledge/perspectives/experiences will make your contributions more valuable for everyone.
singlow
Everything is about X, because I can redefine X to mean anything.
adim86
I think this article is really true, and I think a consequence is that people are really hungry for thick desires these days but they cannot put a finger on it. They notice themselves not growing, they get the dopamine hit they were looking for but it feel like empty calories.
As a software engineer, I decided to build an app about side quests. Reading this article I realized I could not put a finger on what I was getting at either, but I just knew I hadd to add wholesome activities that were not part of my life into my life and I kinda built this app for myself (initially for a hackathon) and just shared it with friends.
Hopefully it's useful to someone else on here (nasty self promotion): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sidequests-hq/id6751321255
keybored
Thick hustle.
delichon
Desires to consume (create) are thin (thick).
Thin: A desire to enjoy a book, video game, movie, musical performance, new technology, love, ...
Thick: A desire to make any of the above.
themafia
> The defining experience of our age seems to be hunger. > We're hungry for more, but we have more than we need.
You're describing consumer manipulation not an actual attribute of population.
> And so the infrastructure for thick desires has been gradually dismantled.
You're describing the consequences of inflation and manipulated market outcomes not actual desires of participants.
> The thick life doesn't scale.
This is almost entirely why we invented cities and society and put up with their consequences in our lives.
> So: bake bread.
So: stop making me pay taxes.
Maybe it's just me. I get easily irritated when I detect casual misanthropy dressed up as a "think piece."
I can't help but feel that this article was written in a format that is the textual equivalent of thin desires…
Every sentence is separated into its own paragraph, like each one is supposed to be revelatory (or maybe tweet-worthy). It's pretty common design knowledge that if you try to emphasize everything, you end up emphasizing nothing. The result is that reading the article feels choppy, and weirdly unsatisfying, since the larger arc of each point is constantly being interrupted.
Why choose such an antithetical form, to what is otherwise an important and deep message?
The only answer that comes to mind is that the author's livelihood, or at least their internal gauge of success, is tied to manipulating readers' thin desires.