David Trend
Neuroscientists call the brain an “anticipation machine” because it spends so much time predicting the future.[i] It does this by piecing together past experiences to build scenarios of expected outcomes, in a process that reinforces itself as predictions come true. But of course things don’t always come true, creating uncertainty and wreaking havoc on the anticipation machine. In mild cases this expresses itself in a sense of worry that things might go wrong. But pile up a lot of bad experiences and you end up expecting the worst, in what psychologists call “anticipatory dread.”[ii] While this can be a healthy process in buffering the shock of negative events, it also can spiral into a harmful sensation of crisis.
Recent research has a lot to say about the anticipation machine’s relationship to the update impulse. Visions of the future don’t spring from a vacuum, but link to objects, expected outcomes, or something we think we want. This desiring process applies to just about everything, whether it’s a slice of pizza or the admiration of others. But here’s the fascinating part: Getting things is less powerful than wanting them. That new pair of jeans might bring a thrill. But soon comes the yearning for another purchase. Neuroimaging reveals that “wanting” and “liking” occur in different parts of the brain, with the former more strongly active than the latter. Contrary to common wisdom, motivation isn’t influenced by animalistic hungers and drives. What gets people going is the imagination, which is why advertising favors feelings over facts.
The dominance of wanting affects all manner of everyday attitudes and behaviors: from consumer preferences, to competitive impulses, to the urge for self-improvement.[iii] So powerful is this desiring mechanism that it makes people yearn for things with no benefit. This helps explain America’s addictive consumerism, as well as why money and achievement bring so little joy. It’s why some people eat to the point of obesity or keep doing things they don’t like. This anticipatory brain function goes a long way in explaining the enjoyment people get from the future-oriented practice of updating themselves or their possessions. Pleasure comes from the update process itself.
Philosophers have pondered behaviors like updating within a general “will to improve.” Such thinking dates to the Latin term conatus, translated as “a directed effort, natural tendency or striving.”[iv] Largely based on observations of the natural world, conatus was seen as universal inner force that maintained the existence of living entities. Romantic era thinkers gravitated to the notion of a loosely defined life force within all matter, inhering in animals and plants as well as phenomena like gravity and waterpower. This life force could be movement toward life enhancement or a way from something threatening. Eventually some philosophers even used conatus to explain social and political movements.
These many forms of conditioning come together in conceptions of “the good life,” seen by many as the reward one gets for working hard, obeying rules, and living virtuously. Definitions of the good life often refer to abundance, like “a life of luxury, pleasure, or comfort” or one that is “simple, healthy, and morally pure.” [v] Discussions of the good life date to the ancient Greek concept of eudaimonia, a word commonly translated as “happiness.”[vi] Eudaimonic happiness was seen as an aspirational state that individuals could achieve by demonstrating authenticity and morality in the eyes of the divine. Enlightenment philosophers later limited eudaimonia to a reasoned control of human passions.[vii] Christian theologians gave happiness a moral character as a benefit dispensed by God to the virtuous. In modern capitalistic societies happiness is equated with wealth
The key philosophical point is that happiness must be earned –– either by making money or through self improvement. Common throughout the western world, this view of happiness is especially strong in the U.S., with its “pursuit” spelled out in the nation’s founding declaration. Put another way, happiness can be sought but never is guaranteed or universally enjoyed. As a substance is short supply, happiness is an incentive for certain conditioned behaviors. It is a promise of a future state of mind, rarely recognized in the present. This peculiar and somewhat limited view of happiness has become a central pillar of American society, accepted as a norm and part of the nation’s value system.
Happiness is a main driver of update culture. Americans measure time in happy days and happy hours, singing Happy Birthdays over Happy Meals. Indeed, entire new categories of consumer culture have appeared to fill hunger for happiness, because, as Mad Men‘s Don Draper famously put it, “Advertising is based on one thing: Happiness.” Hence, Coca-Cola beckons us to “Open Happiness” as Trident offers “A Little Piece of Happy” in what the advertising industry now terms “joy marketing.” Little wonder that such promotions find traction at a moment when 95% Americans say they want more joy in their lives.[viii] So of course Reddi-Whip would promise to “Unleash the Joy” as MacDonald’s says “I’m Lovin It.”
With happiness the anticipation machine of the brain really kicks in. Today’s fast-paced life takes a toll on the good life –– and particularly on happiness –– because the sense of well-being is tied directly to one’s outlook toward the future. Most people think about the possibility of happiness far more than they experience it, so that happiness functions as a goal linked to certain objects, situations, and social relationships. This anticipation can be so powerful in daily life that it can cause anxiety, especially when “true happiness” doesn’t match expectations. The result can be an anxious sense of self-doubt that one isn’t appreciating something pleasing to others, that perhaps something is wrong in oneself.[ix] The trick, of course, is figuring out how to make space for happiness, because happy moments require a temporary suspension or repression of worry.
In recent decades happiness has gained an entire mental health movement to support it. Rising in popularity in the early 2000, the field of “positive psychology” disrupted decades of illness-based therapeutic practice pushing happiness as a universal cure-all.[x] Rather than treating problems in a conventional “deficit-based” approach, positive psychology employed “strength based” methods to increase mindfulness, wellness, and healthy habits. In the years since its introduction, positive psychology has lent a quasi-scientific legitimacy to once-fringe practices now widely practiced, such as meditation, massage, and yoga. Significantly, positive psychology deemphasized the role of clinicians and therapists by focusing on the “self” in personal betterment. The program recommended individualized activities like journaling, goal setting, and creative hobbies, with a clear message was that “you” are responsible for your own happiness.[xi]
Creating spaces for happiness drives much of update culture –– most obviously in multi-billion dollar “self-help” industry. Estimated at a whopping $270-billion next year, self-improvement seems everywhere these days: podcasts, phone apps, books, workshops and courses, YouTube videos, exercise programs, fitness equipment, spas, gym memberships, diet regimes, natural foods, nutritional supplements, motivational speakers, workshops, courses, meditation programs. This focus on the self not only distracts from structural inequity, but it also pits neighbor against neighbor in a competition for the good life. The impulse to fix the self means leaving others behind, ignoring their plight, and abandoning any impulse of common struggle.
The very idea of self-help is anticipation-oriented in that it asks people to imagine a future self, and then try to become that self. It should go without saying that most people fail in this effort because the update they seek takes more than clicking a button or buying a product. The tragic reality is that many of the things that truly make people unhappy are beyond their control. Job insecurity, economic uncertainty, entrenched prejudice and discrimination –– these are the impediments to the good life. Yet since the early days of industrial capitalism, individuals have been convinced that if they don’t make enough money or find their way to the American Dream, the problem lies within their own incompetence or lack of will. With just a little more effort or work on the “self” things will be better, people are told. And in one final irony, the very term “self-help” itself is a misnomer in that such programs invariably entail guidance from another person or group. In this sense, the concept of self-help often devolves into a form of conformity or submission.
[i] Dan W. Grupe and Jack B. Nitschke, “Uncertainty and Anticipation in Anxiety: An Integrated Neurobiological and Psychological Perspective,” National Review of Neuroscience (Dec. 24, 2014) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4276319/ (accessed Feb. 16, 2023).
[ii] Brittany Loggins “Living in Fear of the Future: What to Do,” VeryWellMind.com (Dec. 17, 2021) https://www.verywellmind.com/living-in-fear-of-the-future-what-to-do-5204385 (accessed Mar. 11, 2023).
[iii] Kent Berridge and John. P. O’Doherty, “From Experience Utility to Decision Utility,” Neuroeconomics (2014) p. 337.
[iv] “Conatus,” Collins English Dictionary (n.d.) https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/English/conatus (accessed Jun. 4. 2022).
[v] “The good life,” Oxford Dictionaries (Jan. 22, 2021) https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/the-good-life (accessed Jan. 22, 2021).
[vi] “Virtue Ethics,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Dec. 8, 2016) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/#EudaVirtEthi (accessed Jan. 27, 2023).
[vii] “Spinoza’s Psychological Theory,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2020) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza-psychological/ (accessed Jan. 23, 2023).
[viii] Renee Neale, “Joy Marketing: What Is It and How Can You Involve It In Your Marketing Strategy?” LinkedIn (Jul. 20, 2018) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/joy-marketing-what-how-can-you-involve-your-strategy-renee-neale(accessed Mar. 14, 2022).
[ix] Sarah Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness (Durham: Duke, 2021) p. 36.
[x] Martin P. Seligman, Flourish (A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being) (New York: Atria, 2012) p.1.
[xi] Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (London and New York: Oxford, 1995) p. 27.