For the longest time, mainstream psychology has focused on the drives related to aggression and pleasure-seeking. That’s a bit too simplified for me. If these two drives were all there were, there’d be no room for people to act or make choices that didn’t involve themselves. There’s a video I reference a lot (including later in the book) that takes place on a beach somewhere in which some unexpected weather rolls in, suddenly creating waves much larger than the people in the water were expecting and a current much stronger than they could manage. Several of them get pulled away from the beach and are in danger of drowning. Unexpectedly, a man runs out into the surf and starts saving these people, one after the other, and he just keeps doing it until he, too, has to be saved. Can you explain that with just those two drives?
I don’t think so. You can contort some reasons to fit them, like maybe he wants to impose himself on the world or he gets some pleasure in knowing he’s strong enough to swim out there, but what I think is that there’s an innate goodness in that man’s heart. He sees the moment and he knows he has to do something about it—maybe he can save some people, maybe he can’t—but next thing you know, he’s in the water.
When you observe how people operate, there’s clearly more than assertion and pleasure at play. Altruism, learning just for learning’s sake, the fact that people can be benign and helpful at times when everything around them is falling apart—these tell me that something else is going on. If the only drives we experienced were aggression and pleasure, I can’t imagine how our species would have survived. We would have killed each other off to the point of extinction or we would have lazed in luxury and decadence while the world around us fell into rot and disarray. And yet, civilization exists and persists. As does the appreciation of beauty, kindness among strangers, and enduring works of art.
That’s where the generative drive comes in. In some ways, this book is all about the generative drive.
Our generative drive is why we desire to make things better; it’s also why, at our best, we tend to build more than we destroy. Anything we do related to delight, altruism, and healthy social engagement usually has the generative drive behind it. The generative drive is why we want to make things like art and music; it’s why we want to leave something of value behind, as well as why we enjoy the process of setting goals and meeting them. It’s why my Grandma Grace was continually knitting blankets and scarves for people, even before she knew who she’d be giving them to! It’s what helps us focus on what’s going right and find our way to more optimized mental health.
The generative drive also promotes accountability. Just as we become more our own role models, we become increasingly accountable for ourselves and the world. Additionally, we become less afraid of holding others accountable, be they our friends, family members, or political leaders.
An activated generative drive fosters compassion, as well. Compassion begins with you—learning how to speak kindly to yourself, for example—and then leads to action in the world. Of course, compassionate behaviors also involve some degree of assertion and pleasure (as in, it just feels good to be kind), but what undergirds them is the generative drive. We might not always show it, but I believe that most of us want other people to be happy and free of pain, and that desire is one aspect of the generative drive.
There are as many manifestations of the generative drive as there are people. My grandmother and my mentor at Harvard come immediately to mind for me, but the generative drive isn’t always expressed in dramatic, sacrificial acts on behalf of others. You can see the generative drive, too, in early childhood as kids reach out to touch everything and learn about the world, or in early and middle adulthood if we travel the world or give ourselves vulnerably to new relationships, or in our later years when we take up new hobbies or learn a new language or tend to plants just to watch them grow. Your generative drive is usually evident in the activities you most love in life. What gets you going? What makes life feel worth living?
Essentially, the generative drive is you at your best. When you live from the primacy of your generative drive, you experience the fullness that life offers. It’s an active way to experience yourself and your place in life. Someone with a healthy generative drive is a whole, optimized person. They’re well rested, they take care of their body, and they exercise and eat in ways that work for them and encourage positive health. They know when they’re distracted by discomfort, whether it be physical or mental. They know how to handle adverse external conditions, whether it’s the aggressive driver on their tail on the highway or the icy spots on the bridge up ahead. A generative driver is also gracious and respectful to others on the road.
Excerpted from the book What’s Going Right by Paul Conti, MD.
