In the neurotic fantasy, the lack installed in the subject can be removed by getting rid of the obstacle that prohibits access to the fulfilling objet a. The neurotic fails to understand that there is no such prohibition, that the lack cannot be remediated by transgressing a prohibition: because the lack constitutes the subject, its elimination would dissolve the subject. 174
Even if there were an object that could completely fulfill the subject’s desire and so eliminate the lack at its heart, the subject still would have to “miss” the object in order to remain a subject. This perpetual “missing” is due neither to desire’s inanition [weakness, lassitude, exhaustion] nor to the strength of the prohibition. It is due to the drive.
The drive is what keeps desire alive by producing the illusion that there is an object to aim at as it “circles” the place where the object should be, like a strange attractor. In this way, the drive ensures no encounter with an object while maintaining the illusion of its existence. In this account, the subject is a subject of the drive, not a subject of desire. 174-175