What Makes Us Tick

Dearest Rachel –

You might think that, by waking up with such a title for this morning’s letter, I’d be announcing some great theory of existence to you. A grand purpose for humanity or, on an individual basis, an explanation for what keeps each of us going, day after day. But no.

I’d like to think you know me better than that. You’re fully aware that I’m only smart enough to know that I’m not that smart. Even if I had an answer to that on a personal level for myself, I’m well aware that whatever motivation I might have for moving forward isn’t universal; what drives me may not drive someone else. In fact, if my experience is any indication, those driving forces change from day to day, and even moment to moment; as one element of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is met, there’s another ‘need’ to be met that we feel has to be taken care of, leaving us to strive to fulfill that one as best we can, and so on and so forth.

As I’m writing this, I’m visualizing this endless pursuit of the next ‘need’ as that of a man on a treadmill, with a proverbial carrot dangling in front of him to goad him along. Only the man is already munching on a carrot he’s previously caught; couldn’t he step off the treadmill long enough to enjoy it? And while he’s doing that, couldn’t he just notice that he could just as easily walk around the treadmill to grab the one that’s newly dangling at the front of the machine to keep him moving? For that matter, why should he be so interested in carrots?

Of course, it’s this point that you’d jump in to remind me that I’m starting to break the analogy down with a sledgehammer. The carrot comes from a previous iteration of the analogy, where it’s meant to encourage an animal forward, be it a horse with a plow or a donkey and his packsaddle. Often, blinders are employed to keep the animal that much more focused on the reward ahead of them if they comply. The analogy is extended to humans because some of our needs are as primal as that of those brute beasts of the field, and if not, they can just as easily be substituted; consider the image redrawn with a dollar bill of sufficient denomination to keep a man chasing it, for example.

Which is fine, but again, once one goal is reached, and a new bill is hung in front of the treadmill, when does our man have the chance to spend it – or even so much as put it in his billfold for another time? He has to step off the treadmill at some point, doesn’t he?

The fact of the matter is, if we think of the treadmill as time, endlessly flowing forward (at least, as far as we can perceive it from here), we can’t disembark from it. Well, that’s not entirely true… we can, but there’s no getting back on one we choose to do that, and those that arrive at that ‘solution’ often don’t have much understanding of what existence “off the treadmill” is like. There’s speculation about it – and some have concluded that it’s actually non-existence, which they seem to think is better than existence – but guesses aren’t worth staking one’s life (or would that be afterlife?) on; if you get it wrong, imagine what you might lose!

So we keep going forward – albeit on a treadmill that can be as wide as the world, so it’s not like an endless confinement in some five foot by three foot space – because we don’t want to risk the alternative, especially if we impose it on ourselves. We somehow see making that deliberate choice as wrong – and certainly irrevocable. In summary, what makes us get up every morning, is the fact that we wake up in the morning, and that’s it.

It sounds unsatisfying to say so, but at the same time, it ought to be enough. There are those more enlightened than myself who have claimed that our continued existence is the reason our existence should continue, which sounds like a tautology. But here’s the thing; if their argument is that we were created for a purpose, any extra day we are given is an additional day to either find, pursue or press on with that purpose. We are only taken off that path when we’ve accomplished it, or when it’s clear that we will make no further strides toward that end.

I don’t know that there’s any way for me to prove this conjecture, at least on this side of the veil. For all I know, you actually have the answer, but given where you are, you’re in no position to convey it to me, or anyone else who would be able or willing to accept it. So for the moment, all I can do is to ask that you’d just continue to keep an eye on us, and wish us luck as we keep moving forward for now. We’re going to need it.