Eros as a creative force: the transformational power of desire
Further readings on understanding how desire can be fostered as an intellectual, artistic, and creative resource for radical empowerment
Welcome to this month’s installment of Further Readings, where each month I share a list of resources and reflections through which we can go down a rabbit hole together. The main goal here is not just to provide a media guide, but to provide a starting point for the process of questioning. You will notice the topics we dive into are incredibly broad and conceptual because I believe that these characteristics are the ones that have the most room for personal expansion and development.
Given that there’s no media roundup this week, don’t forget to check out my weekly segment on Perfectly Imperfect where I share recommendations of things you can do instead of doomscrolling :) Here you can find everything from activities, books, movies, shows and fun corners on the internet that bring comfort, meaning, and whimsy back into my life:
Things to do Instead of Doomscrolling - Slow Reset
Eros—frequently conflated with desire or love—has often been reduced to a merely physical and sexual understanding, yet eros exists as an innate driving force across all areas of our lives. Its foundational principles are paradoxical: it arises from lack, from the distance between ourselves and what we long for. The flame of desire can only exist within this space, and yet to close the gap is to smother the very fire that longing creates. Eros is sustained through an ambivalent tension—pleasure and pain, fullness and emptiness, attraction and distance. This tension takes shape through the triangulation of the one who desires, the one desired, and the absence that both binds and divides them. It is precisely this nature of eros that makes it bittersweet, but also what makes it such a powerhouse for creative action.
The narrowing of eros into exclusively sexual terms has not occurred by accident. Throughout history, dominant systems have been established in ways that actively repress desire and shape it into compliant, capitalist frameworks of thought and creation. This cannot be understood on its own, as it is directly tied to patriarchal structures and their erasure of eros as a source of knowledge and creativity—rendering it not only useless, but even dangerous, especially regarding the lives of women and other marginalized groups. To isolate eros from education, civic life, spirituality, and art is to deny access to one of the most vital forces for growth and transformation.
To reclaim eros is therefore a radical act of empowerment. Once we understand eros as the root that connects all branches of life, we are able to step back and recognize how thinking and making are essential resources for creating a generative collective life. Fostering this energy allows us to imagine futures beyond the present that align with our personal and collective desires. The same drive that fuels a poem, a painting, or a question is the same one that drives change across communities and systems. To cultivate eros is not only to reclaim the power repressed into unfulfillment, but to become an active participant in the movement toward a better tomorrow.
Below, I provide a list of books, essays, videos, and documentaries that have allowed me to dive deeper into this topic. I’ve included links for all of them, so you can access everything directly. I encourage you to use this list as a starting point for your own research: check the references of each piece, explore concepts you’re not familiar with, and dig deeper into the ones that spark your curiosity. We have a lifetime to keep learning, so I hope this exploration continues throughout your life :)
