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the point is not to have no desires, the point is to be able to desire things without having a certain outcome be necessary for happiness.

the problem with the former is that you end up "desiring to have no desires" which isn't logically tenable. the latter however is a skill you can train. the ability to accept outcomes instead of registering certain outcomes as impediments to happiness.

to put it another way... hoomans are born needy and mature as they become less needy. many incels are hoomans who thinks being less needy is a binary state and so end up pretending to not need anything and never improves.

money can be a trap here because it's a short-term fix to solve neediness. if u "need to work" or "need to eat" or "need to buy that iphone" then having money resolves those needs. the trap is that all the needs coalesce into the monolithic "i need more money" need.

so the question is... why are most desires tied to happiness? my theory is that it's b/c most desires are mimetic. because the desire goes through a surrogate, the surrogate's approval (or the mental model of the surrogate) becomes NECESSARY