Dr. Paul Conti

There would be no altruism.

There would be no people who joined the military and put their own health at risk in order to protect others.

None of this would happen.

We would not create art.

We wouldn't offer a hand up to someone who's down when no one is watching.

All the things that are best about our humanness come from our generative drive, our traditions of philosophy, literature, history.

We've known this across hundreds and thousands and generations.

Not hundreds, but thousands of years, right?

We have understood this, but we haven't acknowledged it in modern psychology that what we want is to be generative.

We want the world to be better.

We want to leave the world better than we found it.

And it's not just at our deaths, right?

It's each day.

Even if someone gets up and has a quiet victory of getting through their day.

No one's going to celebrate them.

Their day is difficult from when they wake up to when they go to bed and they might think, all I'm doing is getting through all this so I can do it again tomorrow.

That person is being generative.

That person isn't driven by, oh, I just want to massage the world and find some pleasure in it.

That person sees a value higher than themselves.

Maybe they're taking care of their family.