On Wanting to Be Seen

By Ryan McMillian

I typically talk to myself on my way to work; it's the space where my thoughts feel freest. I often chase a thought, or if I'm listening to something, wrestle with the conclusions or implications.

It was then that I was captured by a thought; I had just watched a video about influencer culture. Someone was breaking down how people present themselves online, the performative nature, the optimization. I thought to myself, that tracks; I can agree, but then I noticed myself; a feeling — no more of an awareness of a trigger. It's the feeling you may get in your stomach, or maybe it shows up as an overwhelming sense of uneasiness. I didn't want to name it, but it was clear.

I want to be seen too.

However, not in the way the video was criticizing; it's not performing certainty (we've discussed that in a previous field note). It's not to be seen most optimally, although that is tempting. It's more so a drive, a source of energy, underneath it all: the writing, the building, the posting, the not-posting; there's a drive that doesn't just come from nowhere. If I am being honest, if there wasn't something in me that wanted to reach you, I'm certain the work would not happen the same way. In fact, it most likely wouldn't happen at all.

What's interesting is that in the leadership world, self-motivational content and relationship advice both seem to hint at something. The idea that you don't need external validation; that staying grounded in yourself is enough. In fact, you are enough. Across fields of study, the language is the same. Make no mistake: the advice is saying something; there is a real danger in making your life about trying to impress someone else. The need for approval becomes dangerous when it runs the room rather than serving the work.

However, my thought is that the prescribed answer overshoots. There is research by Deci and Ryan, two psychologists who spent decades studying what motivates people; they identify three basic needs driving sustained human functioning. Autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Relatedness, they say, is not a sign of weakness that you need to mature from, but more a fundamental need as basic as the other two. People who operate without genuine connection, without caring whether what they do reaches anyone, don't function better. Over time, they tend to function worse.

The desire to matter isn't the corruption running alongside motivation; it's sometimes the engine.

A philosopher named Girard argued that we don't generate desire from inside ourselves; we learn to want by watching what others pursue, by being drawn toward what the people we respect are drawn toward. He claimed that the idea of desire as self-generated and untouched by others is a kind of myth we tell ourselves because the alternative may be uncomfortable. Be honest, I'm not alone here; think about a time you pushed yourself harder because someone you respected was watching you. That wanting didn't come from nowhere.

Where am I going with this, you may ask? Well, here's one lane. There's a line between two versions of that wanting, and the line isn't the wanting per se.

On the one hand, the first version is seeing something someone else has built and moving toward it. Energized by what they are, by what they've done. You want to emulate, to do something similar; you don't want to take from but to pursue what they found worthy of pursuit.

On the other hand, the other version sees what someone has and wants to close the gap by taking. By having what they have, so the distance between you and them can stop hurting. It's not about building something great; it's about ending the feeling of falling short. They can feel identical from the inside; the separation of the two is what you want with the wanting.

So, what do you do?

You don't kill the drive; killing it doesn't make you more grounded; in fact, it makes you less honest and, eventually, less motivated. What lives underground still drives. It just no longer has your awareness. To be unaware of what moves you is to be ignorant of self.

You name it, direct it, ask what version of wanting is running the show: when you hesitate to post, when you stay up late working on something you don't have to. When you create. When you find yourself caring more than you expected to about whether it landed.

Self-sufficiency is a useful aspiration. As a destination, it's dishonest. The people who carry weight well aren't those who've killed their drive to reach others. They're the ones who have become honest about it.

The goal isn't to need nothing.

It's to carry what you need well.

Tools of the Trade — Written by Ryan McMillian. Developed in conversation with Claude (Anthropic). Sources: Deci, E.L. & Ryan, R.M. — Self-Determination Theory; Girard, René — Deceit, Desire and the Novel (1961).

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