Having thought about causation this past year, I have come to the appreciation of the fact that there are some base emotions that we all have, that are part of our core psyche, and we can’t really change.
We can work on them, temper them, and otherwise deal with them, but we can’t remove them as impacts on ourselves.
The emotions, similar to instincts in animals, through natural selection have supported our survival, and are now so deeply engrained, that there really is not much we can do about them, except recognize that they exist, accept their influence, and take it into consideration.
With that introduction in mind, here is what I have learned. There are actually two base feelings (or instincts).
1) Not to be alone
2) Productive action
From these two primary instincts, three higher level instincts are borne:
1) To be liked by our community (subset of 1)
2) To control (subset of 2)
3) To understand (subset of 1 and 2)
Of course, it could be that I haven’t worked enough on exorcising these traits from my personality, but my current feeling is that these five human instincts are intertwined with the totality of the human experience and inseparable.