Sir David Attenborough turned 100 last Friday. Most of us celebrate his life’s work as a prolific nature documentarian and conservationist, as well as for his centenarian achievement. But who connects the two?
In the unlikely case you’re not sure who David Attenborough is: Netflix trailer on YouTube
The connection between Attenborough’s chosen career path and his "healthspan" (long-term functional health quality) may not be obvious. But his devotion to a cause greater than his own personal satisfaction or material gain may be his longevity secret. And there's research to support it.
Though some research cited below points this direction, I have to admit it leaves important questions and connections open. Even so, what we know best is our own lived experience. And there are connections we can make for ourselves where the limited research lends support.
The Satiation-Satisfaction Gap
The environment we evolved in, and for, over hundreds of thousands of years, and the industrial world we built for ourselves in the past couple of hundred years, are very different. Our biochemical, epigenetic evolution can’t keep up. And evidence for the gap between them shows up across the medical and psychiatric literature.
When we can recognize this evolutionary-societal gap, though, we find ourselves less confused by a subtle or subconscious sense of something missing. But there’s nothing missing in us. We’re just missing the environment, and sense of place and purpose in it, that we were made for.
In pre-industrial society, the individual was embedded in a kin group, often a craft guild handed down through generations. A sense of continuity included a congregation whose myths and rituals connected us to the cosmos. Mystery abounded, yet our individual contributions and social value were woven into the patterns of daily life. Industrial and post-industrial society has displaced that foundation, grounded in our biological evolution.
Like it or not, giving ourselves a sense of place and purpose, when contemporary society cannot, is now a personal responsibility. One that shouldn’t be outsourced to a “social” (advertising) platform, however tempting and effortless it may be.
The Identity Connection
Contemporary culture offers a clear, if transactional, path to social value and self-esteem. Conspicuous consumption places consumer brand value as a proxy for self-esteem. The more exclusive and valuable the brand, the more value it lends to our socially derived identity. But the brand association to social signal self-worth pathway can only get us so far. A quick hit short term, but a hamster wheel-like cycle long term. A sense of futility can result, that comes with psychological and physiological (mind-body) costs. The High Price of Materialism, by Tim Kasser, has well documented them.[3]
The path to self-fulfilment and healthspan is, paradoxically, less self-seeking. And far less traveled. Choosing a personal cause of greater benefit to others, our environment and our world, may or may not pay into our bank accounts. But as in Attenborough’s example, the research shows the path self-derived self-worth path, more than the externally-derived self-worth path, can give us longevity.[1]
Pavlov Meets Maslow
Modern advertising is Pavlovian conditioning at an industrial scale. It purports to satisfy us, but the open secret is the corporate profit motive behind the seductive content. What’s insidious about it is not just the subconscious conditioning, or being dependent on the whole system to survive, but exposure to it began pre-verbally. It became invisible to us, like water to a fish, before we could a voluntary decision about it.
But now that it is visible, let’s not toss out our baby with the Pavlovian bathwater. Our consumption-driven economy isn’t, to me, evil in itself. Even the worst of it, in the form of unbounded greed and it’s resulting environmental destruction and extinction of dozens of species per year, evolved from a deep, possibly genetic, memory of persistent resource scarcity. And lest we forget, material security is the foundation of self-actualization.
Mind-body Inflammation
Now that our survival needs are generally no longer at risk, let’s at least admit that we’ve over-corrected. Evidence of the dysfunctional satiation-dissatisfaction cycle increase chronic inflammation in our bodies. According to the WHO, chronic inflammatory diseases are the leading cause of death in the world.
Taking this a step further, I hope not too out of step with my science-savvy reader, because our individual mind and body are one, society is our collective body, and democratic politics serves the deliberative function of our collective social body, is it a bridge too far to connect the inflammation health crisis to our state of political inflammation?
Here’s the good news. The same biochemical systems that reward novelty and self-gratification can be redirected to a sense of purpose. Practiced consistently, new habits and activities serving pro-social values, ones that can liberate us from the satiety-satisfaction paradox, can be self-reinforced. To bring us the kinds of lasting satisfaction no consumer product can.
Supporting Research
In 2014, Patrick Hill and Nicholas Turiano published a study in Psychological Science tracking around 7,000 American adults over fourteen years. They found that a self-reported sense of purpose in life predicted lower mortality risk. Independent of the subject’s age or other factors that are usually attributed to these outcomes.[1]
The effect was significant and it held up throughout the lifespan. Not only the elderly benefited, twenty-year-olds with a strong, self-derived sense of purpose also lived longer.
Steve Cole at UCLA spent two decades mapping out this mechanism. His work on the “conserved transcriptional response to adversity” shows that people who harness their wellbeing to eudaimonic activities (in pursuit of fulfilling individual potential) display different inflammatory gene expression profiles than those whose wellbeing is harnessed to hedonic activities (pleasure-seeking and personal satiation).[2]
Though both groups self-reported similar happiness levels. But underneath that their biochemistry was different. The eudaimonic group indicated lower expression of pro-inflammatory genes, and higher expression of antiviral ones. The hedonic group, “happy” or not, did not.
The eudaimonic-hedonic distinction also has been appropriately challenged on measurability grounds. The evidence should be tested further. But the pathways have been credibly identified: better HPA axis regulation, lower chronic inflammation, and possibly improved vagal nerve connection between brain, gut, heart, and lungs. The neurobiology of consistent purpose over years of lifetime has a footing. Let’s use it.
In Practice
I’d love to give you an actionable protocol here. But the pivot isn’t a particular behavior pattern. Where you direct your purpose-driven energy can’t be decided for you. Some clearly wish it could be. But for you, it requires self-inquiry. What I can offer is a framework for self-inquiry to help you surface and highlight who and what matters to you, beyond your personal material needs, to create more space for it in your life. The rest, as I reminded you in my subscription welcome message, is up to you.
And no, there’s nothing to buy. You don’t have to go anywhere. And I assume you shouldn’t quit your day job. Sorry.
Ready to take the Reclaiming My Purpose Self-Assessment? Just email me, [email protected]. Subject: “Send me the Reclaiming My Purpose Self-Assessment” (it’s built in to the link). And I’ll reply with the link!
Shiny New Goal Pitfall
Two of the most powerful automatic responses consumerism has tattooed on to our brains (before conscious consent) are to expect novelty, and instant gratification. A little self-awareness here goes a long way to keep any new commitments we make to ourself from becoming another act of consumption. Another goal or status signal. As Christ put it, “when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” (Matt. 6:3) Old habits die hard. And there are probably a lot of them. So just notice them when you can. Keep feeding the new baby with love. The old ones will soon move out soon, with your help.
Your Piece Is Just The Beginning
David Attenborough is a marvel not because he’s 100. He is a marvel at 100 because he still can’t give enough. The cited science shows us the connection between these two things.
Contemporary consumer society is a labyrinth, or a puzzle. Each of us must find and claim our own personal center. Society’s puzzle is only waiting for your piece to find its place in the big picture.
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Footnotes:
Hill, P. L., & Turiano, N. A. (2014). Purpose in life as a predictor of mortality across adulthood. Psychological Science, 25(7), 1482–1486. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24815612/
Fredrickson, B. L., Grewen, K. M., Coffey, K. A., Algoe, S. B., Firestine, A. M., Arevalo, J. M. G., Ma, J., & Cole, S. W. (2013). A functional genomic perspective on human well-being. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(33), 13684–13689. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23898182/
Kasser, T. (2002). The High Price of Materialism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262611978/the-high-price-of-materialism/