When
mind was fidgety, like a monkeyWhen you felt restless, it helped to understand drives. The mind perceived, recognized and interpreted. It set goals and acted. Those five faculties were managed by sovereign intelligences. Out of these, it was fourth intelligence, which set goals, by translating feelings into drives. A feeling of fear dictated an escape drive, whose purpose was to achieve safety. That demanded instant responses, varying across species. A deer bounded away. A bird took flight. A fish swam off. While activities of running, flying and swimming differed, it was the drive, which achieved objective of escaping. Drives often made you restless.
Intuition managed drives
Drives have been described in book, The Intuitive Algorithm. Intuition, a pattern recognition algorithm, enabled mind to respond, from input to output, within just 20 milliseconds. The incredible speed of this process depended on massive combinatorial memories in nerve cells and this elimination algorithm. These vast memories enabled nerve cells to remember and trigger drive sequences, with infinite contextual finesse. Drives enabled birds to build nests, selecting secure locations and suitable materials. The wracking sobs of sorrow, or relaxing movements of a belly laugh were both drives responding to emotions. Such drives were inherited responses of nerve channels to varying feelings and emotions.
Search components of drives
Not all drives produced motor outputs. To achieve their objectives, drives also demanded an intelligent evaluation of environment. If objective was to escape, that goal was hardly possible by heading into predator. Increasing distance from danger demanded evaluation of many escape routes. That goal could even be achieved by slipping into a safe sanctuary, inaccessible to predator. Like underside of a rock.. Drives involved a search of multiple contexts to discover right answer. When a person sat down to write a shopping list, drives evaluated stock in larder, likely menus, stock of toiletries, and cleaning needs. Drives delivered item lists to working memory, to be jotted down. By contextually searching mind, drives played a valuable, creative role.
The “Aha” experience of drives
Such drives, searching across varied contexts, were not limited to humans. Konrad Lorenz described a chimpanzee in a room which contained a banana suspended from ceiling just out of reach, and a box elsewhere in room. "The matter gave him no peace, and he returned to it again. Then, suddenly - and there is no other way to describe it - his previously gloomy face 'lit up'. His eyes now moved from banana to empty space beneath it on ground, from this to box, then back to space, and from there to banana. The next moment he gave a cry of joy, and somersaulted over to box in sheer high spirits. Completely assured of his success, he pushed box below banana. No man watching him could doubt existence of a genuine 'Aha' experience in anthropoid apes". Even monkeys inherited creative drives. And restlessness.
The burden of responsibility
The need for a solution had given animal “no peace.” This dilemma was not limited to animals or just ordinary people. It was a problem at highest levels of professional life. Mathen had retired as director of a major medical college and hospital, where he had gracefully managed myriad problems faced by institution. He mentioned that, when he rose from bed morning after retirement, he felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted off his shoulders. His subconscious drives, seeking solutions to a barrage of issues, had become inhibited. He felt unburdened. A multitude of such drives operated in your mind. Some of those could discover no solutions. Which caused restlessness. Understanding those drives and acting to manage them could be a step to peace of mind.
Many conflicting goals
Life was a creative process, facing a train of baffling problems. The options were to fight, compromise, or retreat. Each context triggered distinct emotions. Anger, friendship, or fear triggered competing drives. Intuition provided a narrow focus to each drive, by eliminating concerns that did not fit its own feeling. For drive supported by anger, amicable memories were eliminated. Each drive held a partisan view. As evidence built up, emotional strengths of drives varied. Opposing emotions competed for control. Intuition acted in limbic system to establish most powerful emotion as current feeling. The current feeling triggered its own drive. Competing drives, which opposed feeling were inhibited and became unavailable to consciousness.
Clashing drives
You were conscious of dominant drive. But, other divergent drives continued as subconscious search processes. Many sought to achieve opposing objectives. More often than not, these furtive emotions perturbed you. For some, this process created massive internal conflicts. How could conflicting viewpoints of mind be integrated? How could a multitude of clashing drives be focused on problems of coping with life in a harsh and unforgiving world? Across ages, many solutions were offered to focus mind and still conflicts. Over time, meditation, chanting and breathing routines were found to be beneficial. But, that treated symptom, not problem. The long term solution was to broaden narrow focus of competing drives. An integrated approach to life would empower consciousness.
