One way to figure out what works for humans is to think about the hunter gatherers. We were hunter gatherers for most of human history. Civilization is so new, most of our dead ancestors shake their heads in disbelief about how weird the kids have turned out.

It is true though that we evolved for the hunter gatherer lifestyle, not the worker consumer one we follow now. Which means that when we deviate from that, it causes us problems.

I’ve tried to implement a more natural routine in my life and that means things like considering physical exertion/movement as a basic need. Or to reduce processed carbs in my diet. But I think I’ve stumbled on to another rhythm that might be essential for a well balanced mind.

The Need for Pursuit

I call it pursuit. I think we’ve evolved to pursue things. As hunter gatherers, it meant literally pursuing our prey. It makes us feel good when we are pursuing things and catching them.

For our purposes, we can think of pursuit as having three main parts: aiming, anticipating and accomplishing. This is the dopamine loop. It’s not just pleasure that makes us feel good. It is this entire loop that creates maximum satisfaction.

We need to aim at things. We need to choose what we’re going to pursue. When we do that, we start anticipating achieving our aim and it is already pleasurable. And finally we accomplish our goal and complete the loop. Science seems to be finding that maximum dopamine spikes occur during the anticipation stage, not after accomplishment.

Which proves that it is not simply pleasure that we seek. Those who are given everything they want, without having to pursue it, are denied the opportunity to anticipate.

I even think that we can add a fourth part to the loop: struggling.

Aiming > Anticipating > Struggling > Achievement

That’s the complete loop. And taking it all together, I call it pursuit. When we have pursuit in our life, we feel better than when we don’t.

Pursuit & Chill

But wait, there’s more! It’s not just pursuit that we crave. Being animals, it is also our instinct to be lazy and preserve energy, especially when we have just completed a successful hunt and we are full. Then we like to chill. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to chill or be lazy. Our modern culture makes us feel as though every second of the day should be productive, but there’s a lot of merit in just chilling, provided that it follows pursuit.

The pursuit and chill cycle is what humans evolved to follow. And I’m trying to implement this in my life. I want to not think in terms of weekdays and weekends or working part of the day and chilling part of the day. I want to think in terms of pursuit mode and chill mode.

Some Guidelines for Pursuit

A pursuit for me is basically a project. Keep the project simple enough with a well defined goal and a short deadline; ideally not more than 5 days. Focus on controlling attention in pursuit mode; like a hunter following a trail. If you fail because you aimed too high, learn from it for next time.

During chill mode, relax. Don’t try to be productive. Let ideas collide in your head. Let attention wander. Avoid activities that can capture attention too easily such as social media, video content etc. Don’t try to force the next pursuit; you’ll know when you’re ready. Maybe an idea will capture your attention with such ferocity that you’ll jump right into pursuit mode.

Don’t keep a list of pursuits to do one after other. Don’t make chill mode a fixed time period. The regular weekday/weekend system is not pursuit & chill.

During pursuit mode, allow yourself to miss routine things such as fitness, if you’re in the zone. Follow the routine rigidly during chill mode. The idea being that when you’re in chill mode, a structure for things like fitness, meals etc. will keep you from getting completely lost in attention blackholes. But during pursuit mode, it’s okay to sacrifice the routine, if you’re locked on to the pursuit.

These are some of the ideas I had about pursuit and chill. I’ll implement them in my life and report back. I’m currently on chill mode but I’ve already found my first project: a short primer on my philosophy.

I’ve teased it enough on the blog and I’ve realized that I keep trying to make it perfect before sharing it completely, which is a mistake. So I’m just going to write a long piece on what I think life is and what the world is and how humans live in it and what we get wrong and what I’ve figured out we could change to make our lives a little bit better.

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