True Human Motivation
By James Quillian, Economist, Political Analyst Natural Law
Folks, psychologists have cooked up all sorts of fancy ways to explain human nature. That’s their trade, and it keeps the lights on in their offices. I don’t treat patients and I don’t have an income worth bragging about, so I’m not playing on their field. My work is simpler. I teach people how to size up what to expect from others—politicians, broadcasters, billionaires, and the rest of the citizenry trying to stumble through life.
The first thing to understand is that the most important human behaviors are inborn. We dress them up as thinking behaviors, but that’s just window dressing. If you want to know what motivates mankind, don’t listen to what people say. Watch how they spend their time and energy. That’s where the truth lives.
Most of our hours go into survival. We work because we have to. After that, the list gets mighty short: sex, war, drinking, marijuana, hard drugs, and entertainment in every flavor the market can dream up. There’s also deferred gratification and self‑denial, but those are rare birds. They show up just often enough to keep civilization from sliding into the ditch.
Look around and notice how time is actually spent. Rich or poor, everybody has sex. There’s no evidence one group enjoys it more than the other. Games—whether played or watched—are usually celebrations of war or some other survival instinct dressed up in bright uniforms. Movies lean the same way. A few folks play chess, but not enough to tilt the scales.
Politicians and the public alike pour their energy into the same old drives: passing their genes forward and distracting themselves from the weight of existence. Entertainment is built on those two pillars. But that’s not the whole story. A great deal of energy is spent on escape. That’s where drinking, smoking, casual sex, and endless entertainment step in. Reality is a heavy load, and most people would rather not carry it.
There is another way to live, though it’s not fashionable. It’s called living in the light of reality. When you do that, the need to escape fades. Entertainment becomes optional. Drinking becomes a choice instead of a crutch. Life gets easier to manage because you’re no longer running from it.
And don’t fool yourself into thinking our leaders operate any differently. They’re driven by the same inborn forces as the rest of us. The trouble is, they don’t think in the light of reality either. That’s why the country looks the way it does.