Five Fundamental Feelings
by J. Keay. Published Draft 1, Summer 2019
When you look at a day, a month, a year — there are all sorts of activities you could do with your time. Hopefully you’ll work a bit, take a holiday, read a book, upgrade your home. But why do any of them? How do we choose what to do, and why do we do it?
When people visit New York, they often ask what I recommend doing here. I tell them, as a guest, you can do anything in New York — but it’s mostly a place dedicated to consumption — you can eat things in restaurants, you can buy things in shops, you can look at things in galleries and shows. And you can walk around between those things, hopefully talking to smart people. But the entire city is unfortunately governed by a finite set of activities, predicated on commerce. Money is subtlely behind a lot of things, because the rent is so expensive here (which is in part because it’s an island, with a finite amount of space and limited sprawl).
It’s different when you live here. Or is it? When you’re out and about, you can spend time with your friends, walking about, sharing ideas, but sooner or later, you’ll need a place to sit down (particularly when it’s cold or rainy, which is is for much of the year. But you can always spend time in your apartment — where you’ll likely be eating things, watching things, or of course talking.
Eventually your friend will go home, and you’ll realize there’s a limited number of things you can do in your home. Ranked by the amount of time that you spend doing them: can sleep, you can eat, you can consume media, you can work, you can talk on the phone, you can clean. You can also exercise, meditate, and have sex. But you quickly will realize there’s a surprisingly small number of items on the menu. There may be infinite variations within each category — you can eat pasta, eat fish, or rhubarb pie. But it’s all pretty similar.
Well, I’m proposing that that same simplicity applies to everything in life. There’s a very limited set of activities which we can do in our lives. When you look at them long enough, they can seem fairly silly. I’ve taken to calling them games. We’ll get into the different games in a minute.
But before then, why play games in the first place? Why do anything? What’s interesting is that all the activities people do seem to be in pursuit of five key goals. All the games we play are in pursuit of these essential elements, in the same way that the foods we eat provide us with different fats, proteins, carbohydrates and vitamins and minerals. Here’s an explanation of them all:
Belonging: The feeling of connection, that you’re not entirely alone in the world. It’s also tied in with responsibility, and a feeling that you are needed. Having a dog or a houseplant actually can trigger this feeling in us. It’s the sense of being known, accepted, and worthy.
Security: The feeling of safety and security, that you’ll be ok and will have the freedom to continue doing whatever you please for as long as you want.
Status: Being sought after by others. Different, but related, to belonging. IE, you can have belonging while still being low status, and you can be high status without belonging. Generally correlates with getting higher quality mates, and lowering ones anxiety.
Pleasure — specifically, short term pleasure: In theory, pleasure requires no explanation — but in this case, all of the things above and below could be described as pleasurable. But when we think about personal activities like eating unhealthy food, buying new Apple products and going on vacation, a lot of that is centered on pleasure.
Meaning — meaning could be thought of as a version of personal status — it gives context to our activities. Imagine donating a large sum of money anonymously. Your status among other people doesn’t increase. But your sense of self worth does, which can lead to increased confidence, which can lead to increased status.
How do those fundamental feelings play out? You can get them from all sorts of things and activities in life, whether relationships or apartments or money. But let’s take a look at work. We spend a lot of time in our lives at work. How might different professions yield different combinations of the five feelings? Let’s compare the difference between being a fireman, an accountant, and an artist
How it feels to be a fire fighter
Belonging: High. Being a firefighter provides a strong sense of belonging. You have your fellow firemen to work with, you are loved by your community as a hero, you are considered a sex symbol.
Status: Medium. It’s a dangerous, working class job. But on the upside, you’ll be considered a hero by many folks.
Security: Medium: You’re still working class, and probably won’t ever earn six figures. And there’s a decent chance you could die on the job, or be harmed. On the flip side, there are good pension programs and life insurance to help look after your family. And there’s job security, you probably won’t be fired.
Pleasure: Potentially high. Hopefully you derive some pleasure from danger, from the thrill of the chase, and the feeling of accomplishment for achieving a mission. But most days are just hanging around at the firehouse.
Meaning: You get the good feeling of helping someone. On the flip side, you get to see how cruel and stupid people can be to themselves, so you may develop a disenchantment with society.
How it feels to be an accountant
Belonging: low. Seems like solitary work, and most people won’t romanticize your efforts.
Status: Medium. You have a professional line of work, providing an essential service. Still, very few people love their accountants. You don’t hear tales of women falling madly in love with accountants. You’re seen as a pragmatic choice, not an ideal mate.
Security: High. The world will always need accountants.
Pleasure: Medium: Hopefully this is a skill you’re good at, but it probably gets very mind numbing very quickly. Not a lot of variety.
Meaning: Low: most of the work isn’t necessary or lifesaving, but a byproduct of modernization. It’d be hard to not feel like a bureaucrat.
How it feels to be an artist
Belonging: Low. It’s largely solitary work.
Status: Medium, depending on how successful you are and who the audience is. This is a notable detail: The amount of status you get varies widely depending on who’s respect you’re seeking.
Security: Low. It’s hard to earn money, and rarely can turn into a sustained career. Even if you manage to make something interesting as an artist, it can disappear quickly.
Pleasure: High, assuming you enjoy the pleasure of creating things.
Meaning: Meaning. The creative work is notoriously fickle, and the things you create often go away. Most art never gets seen, never mind appreciated.
In Conclusion
Each game has rules. Ways of achieving it which are considered proper. A terrorist may have their name known by millions, but they are infamous, not famous. Famous has to be aspirational. Similarly, the money game can be played by different rules. Inheriting a lot of money is held in lower regard than earning it. Winning the lottery is considered a pretty low to neutral way to become wealthy. Winning a fortune in a lawsuit is held in low regard. So there are ways to play well, and ways to play poorly.
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This essay is a work in progress! I’d love to discuss it with you, though. Write and say hi.