Desire, Drive, Economics, Materialism and Generational Learning

Have you written a piece that really should be separated out into many short excerpts or blogs; you do so only to combine them again; realizing there is too much overlap to continue in that method? That is this post. :) A friend recently said that most movies and songs will always come back to where they started (I believe to keep people comfortable - the happy ending story); this blog post will certainly not invoke those thoughts. Ive never found full circle to be reality unless the individual, the character, the writer never really wanted to move beyond current existence to begin with. If that's the case, why write the play, the song, or the movie? Yeah yeah...

I've spent the weekend thinking about many things; among them, desire, human drive, intervention, interaction, economics, materialism, the human brain, "starters" versus maintainers and their gap; homeostasis or the psychological desire to maintain status quo to reduce tension, equilibrium points, internal stability, core responses, and the brain - particularly the fear many have of neuroscience ... that understanding it at its core might document what many suspect.. that humans have less free will than we think and are a product of our environment and our minds' perception of it rather than free thinking, useful, pragmatic organisms.

I am convinced these are all highly related to one another. It might take me years to figure out precisely how but we all have to start somewhere. ;) Perhaps this thought process started with the many friends, acquaintainces and business partners I have that seem to be terrific "starters"; they love creating something new. Yet several months into it, the desire to complete the project, book, company, relationship etc and drive to do the same seem to be disconnected. Some argue that it is because homeostasis (or in economics, equilibrium) is boring - so although any objects natural state is to try to expend the least amount of energy (and thereby stay at equilibrium), sometimes the desire and excitement of something new creates enough momentum and energy to move beyond this point into actual action. As something becomes the norm, it, too, is equilibrium and no longer requires the energy expense. This explains many things in life I believe.

Yet how do we explain then how objects that are in motion (baseballs included), including the human energy element, tend to slow over time.. beyond the physics involved. It would seem natural that the further along we as humans get into something and the more of a challenge it becomes (growing is hard), the more we'd continue to persevere until the mission is accomplished; yet the opposite seems to happen in real life. This is explained through physics and quick studies of the brain, but it seems illogical and a bit maladaptive to successful strategy of any sorts.

Many people put just as much energy into staying at equilibrium as they do getting out of equilibrium. I have many friends that do their best to maintain status quo and pour their heart and soul into it; and friends that seem to get themselves into situations just to create disequilibrium to get some sort of temporary satisfaction and high, only to go back to equilibrium when things become a bit too hectic or, to use a non scientific word, scary for them. Humans have too many motivations to begin to try to evaluate why this is the case; but it does lead to a great question - who should those who try to create disequilibrium but want to constantly maintain that status pair up with in business, in relationships, and in learning? It is rare to find someone that likes disequilibrium to the point that their version of homeostasis is constant change. I find them a lot in technology because change is the only constant; yet many fight it even in that field.

Constant change is where all the fun happens. There are few people I believe in this world that can make no change into fun constant change.

But this brings up so many other important points for our markets, our friendships, materialism and so on. Many people are great at beginning new things; not so great at maintaining them. Few possess the ability to do both and do them both with drive and passion. Zizek describes many theories and demystifies some; complicates others; debunks many more. He notes the Parallax View in a book titled the same as shifting perspectives between two points. In this particular case, because the individuals or the situation are on exact opposite sides of precisely the same phenomenon - they can never meet and therefore will never do more than be connected; they will never share space or find a point of mediation. But what I find more fascinating is the parallax nature of the "gap" between ones' drive, and ones' desire. If an individual is attempting to do something rather mundane but can never accomplish it, his attitude about that act often changes to the point where he finds excitement and even pleasure in repeating the same failed task! This is when we shift from drive to desire, to desire to drive.

Ultimately drive will then become its own strategy to profit from each failed attempt to reach that particular goal that is now merely desire. When looked at from a variety of perspectives, we can see this in failed businesses; in businesses that continue to operate without success; in personal relationships that are beyond homeostasis to flat out boring yet they are maintained - perhaps merely for the incremental profit (in this case it can be physical, mental, or literally, dollars) gained from repeating that same failed task. This is all fascinating stuff.

I believe that in good businesses, good relationships, in good friendships, in good partnerships, in good models and in good entrepreneurial activities there must be inherent tension. This can take all sorts of forms, but without it our natural tendency to maintain equilibrium is fulfilled; and life takes on a new meaning - going back to what the brain originally "knows" as intuition rather than intention, and not expanding to the point of drive + desire simultaneously. What a great anything this would be if we could combine the two and keep it there!

Greene and Cohen speculated once that neuroscience will toss out the window all intuitive sense of free will and we will be left realizing that very little of what we do is actually intentional; but more or less the product of outside influences - and that which is outside of our control. That has drastic implications; from the way we treat those that commit serious crimes to the way in which we run our businesses. They speculate that individuals are rarely consciously aware of what is driving their own behavior; and that we are not rational creatures. If the brain truly is the most complex living structure in the universe, then perhaps one day (well after I'm no longer living on this planet) we will understand the impact of this theory.

But I think more interestingly is the parallax gap which indicates (albeit using two entirely different areas of study) that the confrontation of two closely linked perspectives can never find neutral ground; if this is the case, we can apply it to markets and probably more importantly, to people (since ultimately they really make up markets). Perhaps then the effects of materialism and what drives our economy is nothing more than a fetish, an ordinary object that fills an empty place within any sort of structure - and perhaps relationships, businesses, and partnerships are nothing more than this either.

Maybe what we need to do (anyone sure how?) is re-establish what learning is - being the ability to become aware of the disturbing sides of something we knew existed all along - or perhaps even to acknowledge it if we are aware of it. That takes courage beyond what most have, and perhaps an ability beyond what our human minds can do out of self preservation. Maybe the ability to do this though would solve economic woes; calm nerves, and create stronger relationships.

If people always take the path of least energy, and markets always take the path of least energy, then the maximum level of achievement and perhaps even happiness can never be achieved - unless happiness is defined as homeostasis for its own sake. From stress often comes the greatest reward if you're willing to take it risk. Entrepreneurs all over America are trying to figure out what level of stress (and risk) they can handle. Automakers are trying to determine how to solve 3 month long stress to come back and revisit the humiliation again - but they are at a point of parallax gap - they will simply perform the same failed task until the need to do that task becomes their soul driven purpose - probably not so consciously either.

Right now an entire generation is learning about markets; that they don't just go up - they can go down, too... and they're not always "fixable" with more than time and government intervention. More likely in my view, they will go up because of the desire of those very few who wish for something beyond equilibrium - to take risk - and try again in a new type of marketplace. A market not afraid of money written in other languages or the people that speak them. This is what will rebuild our future economy over time... the risk takers, the people that don't want homeostasis, and those that aren't afraid of the neuroscience component that perhaps they're doing it for reasons beyond those that they can explain or will even attempt to.

Fear is bondage that keeps people from achieving great things and being incredibly happy because they're wired to do or be a certain thing for a group of people, an individual, or a business - often out of environmental impacts they cannot explain.

While they are perhaps unaware of the grip that the fear is having on their lives (I meet many of them - hedge fund managers, investors, traders and so on particularly in NYC) ... an entire generation is learning that over-leveraging can be a bad thing (present company included) albeit profitable in many instances.

I wrote in a previous blog called Feminism's Defeat... about my grandfather and how many times I've replaced my couch in the time he has reupholstered his. Our economy is being reupholstered; the fundamentals are there because the fundamentals aren't CPI or GDP or GNP or anything economists discuss in three minute segments on Fox News. The fundamentals are the people that encompass the desire to continue to push beyond what is comfortable for what is great and without boundary - courting all that is new to see what is possible. Once enough people do this, we will see recovery.