It may not be the ONLY thing LIFE is about, but it’s a foundational element: STRIVING … fulfilling the need to BECOME … to learn, to know, to understand, to comprehend, to become “conversant” with the laws and nature of the universe, to become “productively engaged” on one’s own behalf, to become “productively engaged” on behalf of significant others, to satisfy both fundamental and transcendent needs, not only for survival but for sustainable growth, development and personal fulfillment.
Abraham Maslow articulated a hierarchy of human needs in his 1943 paper entitled “A Theory of Human Motivation” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow
These include: Physiologic Needs :: Safety :: Love/Belonging/Esteem :: Cognitive Needs : Aesthetic Needs :: Self-Actualization :: Transcendence.
I would include in this list the need for COHERENCE … the need for things to “make sense”. In fact, we spend an inordinate amount of time and energy “making stuff up” to fill in blanks in our knowledge and experience.
I would also underscore the need for MEANING and PURPOSE and for “the GOOD OF THE HERD”
That’s a LOT to STRIVE for!
Not everybody makes it the whole way. And NOBODY makes it the whole way ALL THE TIME! But we KEEP STRIVING.
What STRIVING is NOT is “seeing how much we can “get away with” or “Beat the System”. [How about germinating “Conspiracy Theories”?]
Let’s focus on what’s maximally DURABLE.
