ABSTRACT
I view affect as the primary innate biological motivating mechanism, more urgent than drive deprivation and pleasure, and more urgent even than physical pain. That this is so is not obvious, but it is readily demonstrated. Consider that almost any interference with breathing will immediately arouse the most desperate gasping for breath. Consider the drivenness of the tumescent, erect male. Consider the urgency of desperate hunger. These are the intractable driven states that prompted the answer to the question, “What do human beings really want?” to be: “the human animal is driven to breathe, to sex, to drink, and to eat.” Yet this apparent urgency proves to be an illusion. It is not an illusion that one must have air, water, and food to maintain oneself and sex to reproduce oneself. What is illusory is the biological and psychological source of the apparent urgency of the desperate quality of the hunger, thirst, breathing, and sex drives.
