…that apparently every animal, including humans, has a psychology based on the same 4 basic instincts?
I don’t have a bibliography or a source for this. My dad told it to me; he said he read it in the book Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin, which he picked up after seeing the movie “Temple Grandin.” Temple Grandin was an autistic woman who felt an instinctive emotional connection with animals and so made a niche for herself in the world revolutionizing the farm industry.
Apparently all emotions felt by all animals are based on a mix of the following 4 instincts: fear, curiosity, sexuality and pursuit of prey. The interesting part is, I think human emotions fit under that umbrella as well, and I started thinking about how.
FEAR: Self-explanatory. I imagine we feel fear much the same way animals do.
CURIOSITY: This was the one my dad brought up, because he was commenting on my insane thirst for travel – you know, the burning passion of the young. It makes a lot of sense then, why young people have such weird and consistent desires. Wanderlust. The desire to see the world. Experimentation. The desire to know what’s beyond the horizon, turns out, is a basic evolutionary need.
SEXUALITY: I kind of like thinking of this one when I’m incredibly horny or sexually frustrated or whatever, to put things in perspective. Society tends to look down on people who let their sex drives get the best of them. Feeling obsessed with your sexual pursuits is a little less embarrassing when you think of it as simply one of four, a thirst as basic and pressing as curiosity, fear, and ambition.
PURSUIT OF PREY: Which brings me to this last one. At first it gave me trouble, because humans certainly don’t pursue prey anymore; economics has done away with that. We just show up at In’n'Out or whatever, and the prey comes to us. Not much predator cred to be had there, even if you did order it animal style. But think about what basic part of psychology is missing from the other three, and the answer sort of writes itself. Ambition. Competition. Any sort of will to achieve is, I think, a human manifestation of the pursuit-of-prey instinct. Nowadays our prey is money and acclaim, but we’re still fighting for it, much as we’d like to pretend we’re not. And in fact money is what we used to feed ourselves, so no surprise that the predator instinct translates over.
The whole thing makes me dream about an incredibly simple, straightforward perspective on living life : live with the four instincts perfectly in balance. And why shouldn’t it work? Have adventures, stay safe, get laid and be successful. But never let one compromise the other three. They’re all there for a reason. (except for sexuality. in my case, cause i’m gay. I went there.)
