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He entered the room running. His little feet made disproportionately loud sounds. I observed him from a distance. Standing just outside the door, I didn’t want him to sense me watching. He stood next to the tall Lego tower I’d built. It was bigger than him, and I assumed he’d like it. It seems like he did, but then he poked it. It wiggled. He smiled. Not at the tower, but at the movement. He pushed it harder. The structure almost fell. And just before it could reclaim its balance, my son delivered one final, decisive shove. This one was fatal. The entire thing broke apart, pieces splattering across the living room floor. As for my son? He was finally satisfied.
From very little, we carry this deep-rooted desire to cause things.
A child will topple what took hours to assemble. A grown-up will sabotage a calm evening with a needless remark. A manager will rewrite a competent email, not to improve it, but to leave fingerprints where none were required.
All of this is not just a physiological need, it’s also a psychological one.
Long before language or ethics, we discover that what we do has consequences. It emerges early, shaped by this simple feedback loop: I act, something changes, therefore I matter. To influence the world, even in small ways, is to confirm our own existence inside it. To somehow leave our mark on reality. We want reassurance that we are capable of accomplishing something, even if that something is not always admirable.
When that feeling is absent, we feel somehow crippled. Unable to express our individuality or assert ourselves as undeniably present in the real world. We exist, but without being fully alive.
If we turn to philosophy for an answer, we will get a different statement about the proof of existence, depending on who you ask.
Descartes says, “I think, therefore I am.”
Daniel Goleman offers a softer variant: “I feel, therefore I am.”
And if you ask Schopenhauer, he’ll tell you, “I desire, therefore I am.”1
But there is also the less-cited formulation, originating in the work of Erich Fromm: “I am, because I effect.”2
The ways to achieve a sense of effectiveness are plenty. Everything from helping another person, doing an outstanding job at work, exercising, the relentless love of building things, to the quiet, exhausting labor of taking care of your child.
Yet, among these obviously noble intents, there are other, darker things we do to satisfy the need to feel as a cause of things. Some of these are abusing people, shouting, cursing, overconsuming, exerting power over others, or the simple pleasure of destruction.
Here, I want to discuss why we commonly take the destructive path to satisfy the need to effect. Why addiction and self-sabotage through excessive consumption are more commonly exercised than creation and privation. And what, if anything, we can do to direct ourselves toward building instead of destroying.
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Footnotes:
- I wrote extensively on this topic here: Endless Desire and The Will To Live: The Essence of Our Existence
- This is from the book The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness by Erich Fromm
- Durmonski, Ivaylo. Actionable book summary: The better angels of our nature by Steven Pinker, Durmonski.com. Available at: https://durmonski.com/book-summaries/the-better-angels-of-our-nature/
- They still need care, of course. And not everyone can work from home. My intention here is to state that before there was almost no other option.
- Why people self-harm. HSE.ie. Available at: https://www2.hse.ie/mental-health/issues/self-harm/why-people-self-harm/
