What Are We Ultimately Looking For?

"What lies beneath our goals in life has always been the urge to feel and to confirm a sense of existence for your identity." - Alfred Bleu

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One question that has always intrigued me is, on an individual level, why do we do what we do? Why do politics and religion appeal to large groups of people? Why do some seek to build business empires, write books, or create artworks? What does social-media mean to us? More importantly, what's the ultimate goal behind pursuing these aspects of our culture/civilization? For quite a while, I'd thought of these behaviors as representing people's need to have purposes and dreams. After all, isn't this what we've always been told and socialized to bear, that we need to find something meaningful , and then move toward it (how clichéd!)? However, the word "purpose" and "dream" have recently evoked a sense of irritation in me, because they are such vague and slippery terms. Explaining our behaviors with those terms is too abstract and philosophical, like asking you to paint "happiness" on a sheet of paper: totally doable, but hard to picture what it's like. Recently, reading Milan Kundera's Immortality has shed new lights on what I've been looking for: an universal, and specific definition of what we all ultimately crave for.

I'd like to start by talking about the sense of identity, or individuality. In the first part of Immortality , Kundera describes a scene where a "newcomer" joins the protagonist and a group of women in the sauna chamber. Even though being a complete stranger to the group, the woman repeatedly babbles about her personal tastes, such as how she enjoys hot steam and is fond of a guest featured on a television show on the previous night. "Didn't you realize how extremely proud that man was?"; "I adore proud people"; "I detest modesty", she articulate without hesitation. This scene communicates an interesting phenomenon: our love, or even obsession, of building and expressing our sense of identity; and why do we do that? It's because we need to confirm a sense of existence in this world. Just as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a philosopher of the Romantic era, once said, "I am different from all the men I have seen. If I am not better, at least I am different."

Where did we get the idea of checking our existence through our identity? One way to understand this is through the Social Interactionist Theory, postulated by Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer. When we were born, we had no sense of self versus the others. We regarded our surroundings as something integrated within, rather then separated, from us. We had no idea that our demands could be rejected, nor did we know that our surroundings can impose conflicts on our beings. However, gradually we learn at an early age from our significant other (usually a parent) and role-playing activities that the surroundings are beyond our control. Through social interactions (in school, for example), we become increasingly aware that not only are there differences between each person's existence/identity, but also that those difference matters ( because they are intricately linked to our state of well-being)! One obvious example at this phase is academic performance. This is perceived by us as the primary label of our identity which influences our well-being we students: we are more likely to be rewarded and regarded as the group of "excellence" with outstanding academic performance, and discouraged if we fall under the class of poor performers.

As we receive more roles (at workplace, within family, race, social groups, etc.) in later stages of life, we integrate more characteristics into our identity, both on an individual and a group level. It is through both creating an individual identity (individuality) and an identity as a group member that we feel secure about our existence. In terms of individuality, possessing and expressing an unique combination of qualities and experiences make your existence feel valuable and meaningful, just as Kundera describes, "...it isn't enough for us to identify with our selves, it is necessary to do so passionately, to the point of life and death. Because only in this way can we regard ourselves not merely as a variant of a human prototype." Why, then, do we still need group identities? We can answer this by seeing humans as social animals. Being in a group increases one's capability to endure and to achieve. It makes you less physically and psychologically vulnerable than being alone. Having your existence being valued and recognized by a larger entity, therefore, creates a sense of power that we cannot achieve alone. Because you are classified with people of the same (or similar) kind, those people become mirrors that reflect, confirm our existence; we look at them to know that I, a person who is able to interact, echo and to synchronize with their behaviors, exist, and hence I am not alone. In short, cultivating individuality and experiencing group identities not only enables greater survival and well-being, but also adds color and a sense of power to out mind (both in consciousness and unconsciousness.) Painting a "self portrait", as a result, refers to the act of expressing our individuality and group identities in order to confirm a sense of existence. This is the fundamental urge that drives many of our behaviors.

We've established how the matter of existence serves as the backbone of many behaviors. Now, let's try to answer the questions that I point out at the beginning. Why are politics and religion powerful? It's because these group identities encompass people and ideas that make us believe that our existence is sustained by a powerful entity. "The president will fix the things I can't fix", "God will cleanse the sins that I can't cleanse" As we devote to politicians and worship the divine forces, we are (or at least we believe we are) allowing our existence to fuse with a larger and more powerful entity. As a result, we feel sustained, and that this unity of self and the group mean more possibilities to bring order to our lives. Where does the matter of existence lie in pursuing goals such as building business empires or having children? Excluding the obvious fact that they might bring us better quality of life, they also function in empowering and prolonging our existence. By investing love, time, money, passion, or energy into goals that grow and flourish, we gain a sense of influence (power) and substentiality; the reason is we've projected and preserved our existence into alternative forms that reflect our values, and we know that even after our death, they carry our existence on-ward. Social-media is another interesting example. It is a platform that speeds up the investing and earning of existence confirmation and drawing self-portrait. Take Instagram as an example. What makes it so addictive? It's the fact that it allows us to directly, quickly formulate a profile that screams our desired individual and group identity. Through images, stories, and profiles, we condense our life experiences into sweet, concentrated juices that propagate"That's what this person's existence is all about."; furthermore, we receive instant reward that praises our existence: likes, followers, etc.