Essay 8: Significance

Essay 8: Significance

Embarrassment feels like a weird emotion conceptually, doesn’t it? I have seen people break down crying from going on stage, and all throughout schooling people were a nervous wreck for every presentation assigned. For that matter, even if we knew there would be no legal consequence, most of us would rather not walk through a city center naked. Even actions generally viewed as respectable like asking someone out or showing your love for someone in public can lead to feelings of discomfort. Taking a step back from your human perspective and just reading these statements, this feels deeply stupid. To make matters even more stupid, we aren’t even born embarrassed of these things, if anything we develop them. The most stupid, cringy, and weirdly designed elements of being human, and yet they are caused by one of the two most dominant needs among society as a whole. This need is significance, the cause of every experience of cringe, every moment of insecurity, most arguments, every arrogant prick, every complaint, but, to some degree, it is also why we love and do our best. The purpose of this essay is to understand this elusive need that single-handedly threw a wrench in the entire concept of communism. We will do so by describing as close to a precise, conceptual definition of significance as I can manage, how it is most commonly fulfilled through the mechanism of external validation, how it contributes to what we call a sense of self, what urges come about due to a lack of significance, what an abundance of it feels like, and how we can get it healthily.

Significance is the need to have our existence be of value. The ways this need expresses itself are so varied that I flat out could not write this essay for the longest time as I could not find the connecting thread but honestly, it is that simple to me. Justification for our value, uniqueness, or importance is fundamentally valuable. Not for some underlying purpose, it is intrinsically valuable, and so much of what we do can be traced back to seeking that justification. The core of the neurology that makes this justification necessary is nearly 400 million years old, or even older by some interpretations. Serotonin is a very known neurotransmitter, it helps with feeling good, sleep, and sexual desire famously but what is less well-known is that it also helps with healing wounds, digestion, and learning. Why is it such a dominant chemical? Evolutionarily the common answer is because it is old, so old that 3 billion years ago, single-celled organisms were using Serotonin to respond to their environment and regulate cell division. More recently (still 400 million years ago give or take) animals decided to enter dominance hierarchies, where they naturally organized with some in leadership roles and others that spend more time listening and doing. This may seem like an idiotic thing to evolve, right? Why would a species evolve in such a way that a majority of the population of any given group was neglected? To put it simply, getting into a group has pros and cons. The pros are that efforts can be distributed, there is protection from predators that happen from being in a group, and pooled resources can at least ensure some in the group continue to live. The con is that every creature values their own survival beyond all else so in the face of a lack of resources the group members would fight each other. In a miraculous case of not throwing out the baby with the bathwater as far as group organization goes, we evolved a mechanism to keep the group together and avoid the internal conflict; dominance hierarchies. In the face of a lack of resources, the creatures at the top of the hierarchy would generally be prioritized, allowing some (and those with the most sought-after traits for that matter) to live and reproduce. The assertion that animal or human conflicts are caused by people trying to prove they are better and operating from a place of ego is not a misguided one, but to view that as an evolutionary mistake is the height of privilege. Conflict is necessary as long as there are differing perspectives; social organization may be the cause of some conflict, but infinitely less than the everyone-for-themselves mentality that would result from the alternative. What does this have to do with serotonin and significance? The main distinguishing factor between animals at different levels of the dominance hierarchy is serotonin production. Animals higher up have higher amounts of it, allowing for better mood, greater focus, more assertiveness, and a level of calm that defines leaders. Lower levels of serotonin (often linked to animals lower in the pecking order [which by the way is a term that originated from chicken dominance hierarchies]) are linked to stress, anxiety, a lack of focus, and trouble learning. To those at the top, everything will be given, and to those at the bottom, everything will be taken away. The levels of these structures are intrinsically designed to not be traversable to keep everything in order. Now, this comes off very similarly to those people who talk about wealth inequality as a bad thing, that we are an evil, imperialist society, that socialism/communism is the way to go, and that these hierarchies are instituted by the rich to put the rest of us down, but I could not agree less with them personally; this is far more a case of a broken clock being right twice a day. Why I disagree will be a conversation for book two. What does this all have to do with significance? Being at the top of a dominance hierarchy was the only way to meet our need for significance for hundreds of millions of years. Our existence being of value (having access to food, love, and respect) was dependent on where we were on the hierarchy, and thus came the drive to be at the top to secure those things. This results in the most common expression of our need for significance, the urge to seek external validation.

When we break away all the romantic or ideologically motivated qualities that make up the perceptions of a dominance hierarchy, all it is mechanically is external validation. Significance was thus gained through external validation as the defining feature of being at the top of the hierarchy was other people respecting, listening to, or wanting to mate with you; thus meeting the need. This assertion accounts for so many tendencies in human behavior. Why do we wear clothes, take showers, and generally avoid making fools of ourselves in public? Not doing so would eliminate any respect or sense of desirability that others feel towards us. Why are so many of us afraid of public speaking? Our performance is being evaluated by many people, and any mess-ups or embarrassments would lessen whatever impression of competence others may have of us. Why do we complain to others? Problems are the biggest addiction in the world, when we complain about one we get heard, everything is about you, and any shortfalls can just be attributed to that. Fundamentally dominance hierarchies are competence-based, the people who are best at what is desired of society will make it to the top. When we are short of our potential, of the standard set by the best of the best, we form stories (not the bolded kind) to explain why. These stories can be true: ADHD, trauma, body composition, appearance, and not valuing it are the common ones I hear. Regardless of whether or not they are true, they are explanations that justify being less than the best one could be. We only tell these stories because we value being seen as competent, if we didn’t it would be wasted breath we would never bother with. Problems allow us to be seen as “competent considering the context”, it is just a cry for reassurance. Do not confuse what I am saying here, I am not making any claims about this being a bad thing, as long as this is done with intentionality I still respect it. Why do we seek love and closeness to others? Knowing that someone we value also values us, and thinks about us, accepts us, and listens to us is one of the greatest justifications for our value as people one could construct. The list goes on and on, but as a general rule, every action we take with the purpose of leaving an impression or gaining the attention of others is a significance-driven action. These actions eventually compile into what we call a sense of self.

When people refer to a sense of self, or knowing yourself, what are they referring to? I cannot be the only one who always felt this was just something people said without really being able to articulate what it means. Not that I could off the top of my head either as it is such a multifaceted concept but I genuinely think the concept of having a self you can know is largely (although not entirely) a significance-oriented construction. Using me as an example, I would like to think I try to be a good person. Generally speaking, I will stick to what I think is the right thing to do even when under pressure because that is a fairly central part of my identity. Would this be the same if my upbringing was different? Doing the hard but good action was always praised and rewarded for me, and I was actively complimented about it regularly. All in all, eventually it became a key attribute I was known for; when my extended family came over selfless or impressive actions I took as a kid kept coming up as something they reminisced about. Any action (or interaction) that was good or considerate was rewarded, thus those interactions were reinforced and a story was built within me of opting for the right thing. As I mentioned in Essay 3, those well-formed stories become habits, and maybe that’s why I have such a strong conscience? What’s to say “knowing myself” is any different from being aware of a series of habits built from what was rewarded situationally? While I do not think this is entirely the case, it is effectively mostly the case for most people (myself included). There was a study that asked people in different age groups “how well do you know yourself as a percentage of your total self?” and what was consistently found is that the older the person was, the smaller the number they gave was. The college-age people said a number like 40% whereas the people in their 70’s or higher said some ludicrously small percentage like 1%. Normally one would expect the opposite, but no, so much of the “self” we know is built off of our community and what was rewarded when we were young. When we are young we don’t know what the self is so we view ourselves as the sum of the habits formed from the stories we were either rewarded for or told ourselves we were. I take this to mean that when we age we come to realize how much deeper than that our self really is, and that our actions, thoughts, and beliefs are all a part of a tangible, shallow, and alterable layer that has to be broken through to get to what we call a self. The point is that we are not (not “not exclusively”, not period) our thoughts, our stories, our habits, our community, our actions, or our external characteristics but we are incentivized biologically to believe so because in identifying with something tangible we have grounds to feel special, and as reinforcement of our uniqueness is rewarded through significance, the habit of identifying with these elements gets reinforced. The opposite is also true though, when we lack significance we are punished for it.

There are multiple urges that come up when we lack a feeling of significance in our lives. As a reminder, urges are feelings that incite action caused by a lack of satiation for a need. In the case of significance: insecurity and victiveness in their various forms are the two main ones that come to mind. Of course this is on top of the hunger, stress, and sadness that applies to the lack of any need. I would personally define insecurity as a pain resulting from the lack of confidence in the self as-is, which naturally motivates two types of action. The first, the avoidance of people, as every person who does better than us or otherwise does not respect us becomes a reminder of that pain which most of us would rather not deal with. The second, lying. Most of our lies are to paint reality in a way that best suits whatever is most advantageous for us, which largely includes us either lying about how we feel or what we did to make ourselves seem more acceptable/competent than we perceive ourselves or our actions to be. For that matter, the lies can be self-focused too, where we lie to ourselves by saying we are something that aligns with our developed sense of self despite our actions not being reflective of it. The traditional definition of lying isn’t all I mean in this case though, intentionally showboating our good traits (wealth, intelligence, appearance, kindness, etc.) nearly exclusively at the expense of what we perceive as less desirable or responsible traits are also lies in my books (I make them all the time). To be completely honest, in every form of approval-seeking behavior is a lie: compliment fishing, abiding by social norms, being professional, etc. but this shows that there is a lot more nuance to this issue than simply labeling all of the lies as bad. Then there is vindictiveness. A nice metaphor to describe it is if significance is the desire to be the tallest tower, vindictiveness is the desire to knock down the towers around you to make it happen. This can be ridiculing people who are successful, hoping for their failure, discrediting their accomplishments, devaluing their efforts, or treating them differently on account of their success. These are just actions though, from what I observe the overwhelming majority of it is purely mental; jealousy, envy, and internally emphasizing the bad traits of people who have what you want are far more common ways to handle vindictiveness.

An abundance of significance is best characterized by comfort, calm, and kindness. One of my favorite series of all time said that all strong people are kind, and I couldn’t agree more. Virtually all insulting, berating, and demeaning actions we ever take are ones we make the effort to do because it is fueled by the urges caused by a lack of significance. Thus a person who has significance in abundance will never insult another, never demean another, and rarely take things personally; as the underlying fuel for these things to happen just is not there. A person in a state of significance has no desire to show off, no desire to take action normally, and every desire to see everyone around them succeed in life. In such a state, seeing others is not an exhausting task, anxiety is reduced, and a decisive focus on your goals dominates your mentality. 

With that being said, here are some healthy ways to reach such a state. First, dedication to a craft, hobby, mindset, or lifestyle can allow for a sense of significance defined by hard work. If we go to the gym every day when others do not, perform insane tasks, have a career doing what we love, or generally take actions to promote a healthy and happy way of life, that is something to derive significance from too. It is a satiation driven by process first and it works because once we are satisfied with the work we do, encountering someone that is better than us stops becoming a threat and starts becoming a learning experience or basis for a shared language through which we can build a relationship with them. Second, genuine relationships where each side takes the time to show their appreciation for the other. This can and should include friends but in my mind, there is no replacement for a romantic relationship. Significance is not something you can fool, nothing does the job of satiating it quite as well as someone who makes it known every day how much they love and desire you. Third, eliminating bad communication habits. The cultural elements of communicating in a degrading way, talking about how exhausting life/other people are, and hating on people you do not know just reinforce bad habits as every response is a reward. Approval-seeking behavior that is not specifically helpful or relevant to your goals in life is another communication habit worth fixing too. 

That is all, see you all sometime by March 7 for Essay 9: Belief!