The Kilroy instinct

What is the fascination people have for sharing information, posting blogs, pictures, facebook, myspace?   Posting mundane information, current and relevant information, instant information, illegal information, pirated music and movies.   We post everywhere and we have posted since the dawn of time, cavemen’s posts are studied to this day from France to Australia. As you walk through Pompeii there are countless modern names etched into the ancient walls.  These modern graffiti mix with ancient political campaigns and well wishes and poems on the same walls. As you visit Egyptian monuments, more of the same. People posting their presence in places they know are inappropriate.  People post pirated movies, music, software online with full knowledge of the illegality of their actions. These aren’t exceptions, they are the norm! The post medium has changed over time, but the desire to post remains the same. There are enough pirate posts online to change the course of entire industries.  Why do we do it, what’s in it for the one posting that he would defy convention and laws? We are compelled to do it.  Why?

We cannot exist alone and remain completely sane, millions of years of evolution have made us social creatures, it’s innate, and it’s part of our genetic make-up, our DNA: we are social creatures.  We are also self aware, we understand that we exist as individuals.  The combination of those two traits, society and self awareness, over millions of years has created in us an instinct for which we have no name.  It’s a basic instinct to have our existence verified by others.  It is not enough to live in society, and it is not enough to be self aware, we must have witnesses to our existence.  It’s instinctive.

The combination of social animal and self awareness evolved into an instinct that creates a desire that our society be aware of us. Self awareness alone apparently doesn’t do it for us, neither does being in society if no one is aware of us. We have evolved what I will call the Kilroy instinct, we need others to witness our existence. Something that says to others “I was here.” It’s instinctive because it is a self contained aspect of our common condition like vanity, pride, creativity, reproduction and survival, it is an instinctive aspect that is an essential component of all those conditions. The Kilroy instinct mixes the social creature with the self aware creature who then expects an awareness of the self from society. It wants to say “I’m here”.

It’s not pride, it’s not ambition, it’s not ego, but it is an element in each of those things. Without this instinct we would not have pride, ambition or egos, it is an essential ingredient to human aspiration. Consider pride without an aspect that thirsts for witnesses, for social awareness.  Consider vanity without an aspect that thirsts to make the statement “I am here, be aware of me”.  It’s instinctive, like breathing, it’s self preservation, but it’s not the self preservation that keeps you from jumping out of an office building window, it’s the self preservation what hungers to have that building named after you. But it’s not ambition, it’s an ingredient of ambition. Ambition, in its many facets, says “I want more”, the Kilroy instinct is right beneath that surface saying “I want more because I will gain witnesses to my existence”.  It’s an ingredient in all of human aspirations, but not the aspiration itself, so it has no name.

We communicate to gain recognition, to be noticed, to have our existence in the world acknowledged.  It’s not the self actualization on the top of Maslow’s pyramid, a starving person, or one who is living in unstable and unsafe conditions still has this instinct.  It’s a component of every suicide note. It screams “I was here. Now you know that I was here”.  Since everyone shares this instinct we don’t stop to try to understand, we simply accept it as a natural part of who we are.  Why do jumpers leave their shoes on the bridge? Mostly because of this unnamed instinct.  Existence without some sort of validation is a depressing thing, it violates our very nature. 

The Kilroy instinct is a way to ensure continuity, an immortality of sorts.  It’s why we procreate, it’s why write books, paint, and hunger for fame, beauty and youthfulness that is noticed.  We want witnesses.  We call it art, we call it vanity, pride, ambition, gregariousness, creativity, we have many descriptions for aspects of the human condition that depend on this instinct.  But none for the essential ingredient in each of those conditions. We create art for many reasons, but each of those reasons includes an aspect of “I was here and you saw me”.  We wear makeup and the latest fashions for many reasons, but each includes that same ingredient, a need for witnesses to our existence.

We call it acceptance, we long to be accepted by our peers, our parents, our mentors, our friends.  We need people to acknowledge our existence, everyone who reads “Leonardo” on the Ramesseum wall, everyone who downloads a pirated movie, everyone who reads a tweet, a blog post, a book is acknowledging the existence of the person who posted, is witnessing his existence in action. It says “I was here, and you saw it”.

It’s the reason social networks have boomed, it’s part of the reason we write blogs, it’s an ingredient in the pride we take in a job well done when it’s recognized.  It’s not pride, it’s a component of pride. It’s a component in the reason we erect tombstones on graves, it’s an ingredient in why we find the desecration of that same tombstone offensive:  it goes against our Kilroy instinct. The tombstone says “I was here” to deface that goes against our instinct.  It’s not an instinct to preserve the memory of the dead, but it is one of its elements. It’s a component of friendships, a friend is a constant witness to one’s existence as is a husband or wife or a child. It is even involved in our need to create gods.  If we have no other reliable witness to our existence, if there is nothing we can do ourselves to gain verification of our existence, if there is no wall upon which to etch our names, then god suffices.  No one else may know I exist, but “God loves me”.

It’s part of the reason we admire people who have become famous, it’s the part of the reason we buy gossip magazine.  Our instinct for recognition and witnesses to our existence see the celebrities’ complete recognition by society and is drawn in, it wants more, it basks in the reflection. It’s a bit like staring at a picture of a pitcher of ice-tea when one is thirsty.

This thirst, this biological need for acknowledgment of our existence, this desperate desire to have our existence recognized doesn’t have a name.  It’s not “ego”, though Freud skirted the concept with his id/ego routine, but he addressed human aspirations, not the components of those aspirations. - By the way, he also lost all credibility with the whole ‘penis envy’ concept.  Seriously ‘penis envy’? Sheesh!

So it doesn’t have a name, I called it the Kilroy instinct, you may call it whatever you like.  It is the unsung hero or villain of the human condition. Whether it is good or evil, it is part of us and unless we give up being social beings or self aware, it will continue to be a part of us and it will keep us posting on cave walls, and on the internet until the end of our days.