Question...

What is it that drives human will? Maybe this question has been asked before. Or maybe for some, this question is very naïve to ask. But there can be plenty of answers and the question is how do you decide which is the most important of all. By driving the human will, I mean providing the motivation to struggle against adversities, to hope when surrounded by dire circumstances and to fight for what one desires. This motivation, does it come from some ancestral instinct or is it acquired after birth in childhood years.
We can possibly classify the factors of this motivation into two broad categories; fear and want. Both stem out from basic survival instinct. Fear in a broader sense, as an instinct, teaches us to seek protection from that what might harm us. Be it beasts, storms or enemies. Fear then develops into many different types depending upon the situation. In the most primitive environment, the fear can be of a wild beast or a storm. In modern sense fear often stems not from direct objects or events but rather consequences of events. In simpler words modern day fear is about losing. Like fear of losing money or wealth, fear of losing loved ones or fear of losing power and status and so on. In some parts of the world fear for life is still very much a real phenomenon. Genocides, civil wars and terrorist acts continue to spill blood even in the civilized world.
Fear may be the driving factor in most of the cases. Especially in situations threatening status quo, may it be an extreme incident like natural disasters or riots and wars where actual existence is at stake. In such cases we find exceptional will power in most common people. The will to survive enables people endure worst suffering in hope that it will pass. Another type of circumstances may be less extreme in comparison but still can have a huge impact on an individual’s life. These may be serious in varying degrees. From losing one’s job to having a heartbreak, from facing public disgrace to losing wealth and status. And each individual will react differently and in different extent to each of these threats.
While fear drives most people to bring forth will power even they never knew hitherto existed, want drives people to draw on enormous strength and resolve to get what is desired. An entire gamut of emotions comes under the want category, from simple survival needs like food and water to natural instincts like sex and excesses like greed, ambition and lust. Simple logic might suggest that more basic is the need, stronger the will to fulfill it. This is true in most of the cases. A person deprived of food might kill to eat. But there are many occasions when excesses like greed, luxury or lust drive people so hard that they tend to forget the difference between the right and wrong, giving rise to crimes like corruption, scams and rapes.
While we search for the answer to the question about what drives the human will, we also need to search for one more answer. How do we use this knowledge to mould and channelize human race from civilization to super-civilization, a mature society where peaceful co-existence and mutual co-operation are pillars of the social order? Golden era of human race may then truly begin.