The Primal Quests seem to create some sort of identity for us that shapes our everyday life: with its endeavours and pressures, its preferences and principles. The imaginative existence of «Model Beings» (see next section: Planes of Existence) suggests something that lies beyond our socially-determined and personally-developed self-concepts.
The Quests generate a preoccupation with universals, like work and ethics. It is also noticeable that these Quests would be expected to appear in all cultures and societies: e.g. what was creative in the past, is still deemed creative, and pursuing ideals remains even if the particular ideals do change.
This FAQ webpage covers some common objections and misunderstandings. Click on any Q to see its Answer. Make comments and post other questions below.
A: The Primal Quests don't do anything. You do things in accord with their nature.
They are potential personal «life purposes» that can drive or influence specific endeavours. The type of purpose persists and can never be dismissed as «been there, done that». Each Quest has a different function, but each is perceived (by the person who adheres to it) as the best way to be happy &/or have a meaningful life.
A: The Primal Quests have incompatibilities and significant differences. However, it is possible and probably desirable to have at least two: one from each pole of the Approach Duality i.e. from each of the diagonal sets. You can still find other Quests appealing. Aspects of them will certainly be relevant at times.
Q: I believe that I relate to many of your Primal Quests. Why do you insist that is impossible?
A: It is very likely that you have a genuine sympathy with the underlying principles of each. Indeed, everyone should. However, it is simply impossible in practice to pursue all the Primal Quests because of the many contradictions in assumptions and requirements. It is possible that you are sensing the Root Spiral (not yet discovered/developed), or the nested Framework within Obedience that draws on all Quests, or the Planes of Existence (see next section).
A:Money can buy happiness: but only if your happiness is built around Pleasure-RH'L1. Money is also useful for anyone, as it provides freedom and widens opportunities to seek happiness via any particular Primal Quest. But money can't buy meaning (ideals), enlightenment, salvation, creation, obedience or spirituality. Money is often portrayed as an obstacle because of personal and social attitudes.
A: There is a Lust for Power in THEE: it corresponds to the destructive operation of Change-RH'L3. It is insatiable, but that is not enough to make it a Quest. It is closely linked with being power-centred, which is social-ethical in nature. In the next section, I offer some further speculations.
Q: What about the importance of empathy in the Salvation Quest?
A: Empathy is essential for the Meaning Quest, whereas in the Salvation Quest, observation and intervention are the requirements. The focus is on specific individuals who are so vulnerable or so deprived or so desperate that anybody and everybody can observe the suffering. Yet nothing, or not nearly enough, is being done to rescue the situation. Empathy is likely, useful and beneficial in the Salvation Quest, but it is not the fundamental issue. Common decency is far more relevant.
Q: How can the Salvation Quest exist outside a religion?
A: An ideological ownership of this term seems to have developed. All religions have soteriological (or salvationist) aspects, so each religion has its own answer for you. That is perfectly normal and reasonable. But people in physical danger and currently suffering require care and attention from others who are better off, irrespective of the religion or religiosity of the sufferer or the rescuer. The term «salvation» has been chosen for such a Quest. You can suggest an alternative name.
Q: Are Primal Quests forms of ethics or ethical philosophy?
A: The Quests may be intrinsically ethical as a group: but that is uncertain at this stage of the inquiry. They seem to sit alongside ethics. Some Quests do promote or demand certain ethical choices and orientations. None prevent ethical choice—and that includes the Quest for Pleasure-RH'L1.
Ethics regulates social life, and is not focused on personal happiness or the survival of humanity. The battle between what is good and what is right, fought so intensely by ethicists and philosophers, does not appear to be relevant in this existential Quest arena.
Q: What do these do?