Lack Jacques Lacan

Jacques Lacan believed that "lack" and idea that he came up with that he uses for a reason for when desires arise in a person. Desire is a relation to being to lack. The lack is the lack of being properly speaking. It is not the lack of this or that, but lack of being whereby the being exists.“ The lack aims to fulfil a desire in order for us to feel more whole, however the lack can never be filled, when we get what we originally desire we want more, one of the best examples of this is found in the grizzly man documentary, Timothy Treadwell has a desire to live amongst bears, the documentary in made from found footage and interviews of people who knew him. The documentary ends with Timothys death after he gets killed by a bear. Timothy comes close to being able to live amongst the bears and then he goes on to mention how he would like to morph in a bear, this shows that his desire was close to being completed and then he reached for something else that was impossible. This is a good example of the lack because it shows how people reach fro something that they can't achieve in order to try and fill the "lack".


     


The missing piece a children's book by Shel Silverstein. It is the story of a circle looking for it's missing piece, it rolls through life looking for it's missing piece and it finds other pieces that doesn't fit but eventually it finds a piece that fits perfectly, however when that pice filled the gap it could no longer sing, so the circle let the piece go and carried on looking for a different piece. This shows Lacan's lack perfectly, as it shows how no matter what we are still missing something or as Lacan would say we are lacking.




The missing piece meet the big O is the second book by Shel Silverstein. It tells the story of a missing piece looking to fit, however it can't find a place to fit until one day it did and they rolled together but then the pice began to grow and could no longer fit. It wen't back to being a missing piece, then one day it meets a complete circle called the big O and it tells the missing pice it can roll on it's own. SO the pice tries to roll but being a triangle it couldn't very well but after time it's edges became softer and rounder and eventually it becomes it's own circle to roll on it's own. This shows Lacan's lack because we search to fill what we think we have a lack of but when we find it we change and we grow so we need to continue to fill the lack.

However this animation isn't too good because in the end the missing piece becomes a circle, in which represents becoming a whole, with no lack. but the Lack according to Lacan is always going to be there because when we get what we think we want, we want more.




The mirror stage happens between 6 to 18 months of a infants life. Lacan later developed the mirror stage, he that this stage is representing a permanent structure of subjectivity instead of a moment in an infants life. When an infant sees itself in a mirror for the first time it creates a self identity, in which it identifies an "I". Lacans mirror theory was inspired by phycologist Henri Wallon who observed animals and human looking into their reflection for the first time. He found that humans and chimpanzees recognised their reflection but the chimps lost interest quickly, where as the humans became fascinated, he explained this by noting that in Genesis, God created man in his own image and so as humans we appreciate the the higher quality image set infant of us. When we look into the mirror for the first time, when we identify who we are, we create a expectation of which we can never live up to, leading to the "lack"