Hegel famously adds: This unity must become essential to self-consciousness, which is to say, self-consciousness is desire in general. (§167) As we see, “Begierde überhaupt” in its original meaning is simply a manifestation of an inner incongruity between the two moments of self-consciousness, which accordingly generates a striving for its abolishment. Desire has nothing to do with the animal or the vital, nor is it inherently destructive. On the contrary, it is a desire to make the moment of consciousness equal to the moment of self-consciousness. If self-consciousness can be said to desire something it desires only itself: it is a desire to be self-consciousness, to gain a durable existence. The desire the self-consciousness is, is the desire to be self-consciousness.