Inside Out: What drives you?

[Elok]

So the wife and I saw Pixar's Inside Out at the cheapo second-run theater tonight.  I'd say it was definitely worth the four bucks we paid, though I kept getting hung up on the way they don't try especially hard to make the onscreen action parallel actual human motivation: "wait, so sacrificing her ideal of imaginary boyfriends allows her optimistic nature to take control again--oh, right, overthinking it."

Anyway, in the movie, everyone's controlled by five basic emotions: joy, sadness, anger, disgust and fear.  But everyone has a dominant emotion to motivate them; in the main character, Joy has the driver's seat, while her dad is led by Fear and her mom, iirc, has Disgust.  Which would you say is the most powerful driving force in your life?  For me, it's probably fear; I'm full of doubts and worries, and my first thought in any situation is "how can this go wrong?"

Of course this is kind of simplistic--disgust IRL has elements of both anger and fear, for example--but which of the five is your big'n?

[Lorizael]

Fear is probably my big one, too. I often refrain from acting at all because I would rather not try (and have a chance to fail) than try and fail. Bad attitude, obviously, which I get angry at myself about...

[Unorthodox]

Fear killed Joy and has assumed it's role. 

[vonbach]

Fear (meaning respect) Yahweh (God's name) and keep his commandments.

[Rusty Edge]

"Anyway, in the movie, everyone's controlled by five basic emotions: joy, sadness, anger, disgust and fear"

I saw the movie. That seems kind of limited.

Sometimes anger drove me as a teen, but I didn't like that guy, and I learned to let stuff go. Forgive and forget. Certainly I've had losses and  been overcome by sadness. But rather than drive me it seems to keep me in neutral or park. I don't like that guy either. Fear usually takes the form of anxiety and nervousness about the unknown. Once a peril is manifest, it's usually not as bad as I'd imagined and fear dissipates. 

Love ( family, career, a woman ) and lust have kept me going for long stretches. I'm either doing things for the people I love, or doing things I love to do. So I guess I have to say joy, or the pursuit of it, is what usually drives me.

These days I'd describe myself as more serene than driven.

[Elok]

The movie's five are supposedly the basic building blocks visible on an infant's face before cultural conditioning and complex thought kick in.

[Green1]

Good question.

Drive? A lot of the time, I spend trying to avoid bad situations and get in this trap of reacting to events instead of being proactive.

I do have a vivid imagination and unconventional world view, but a lot of things I really think would be cool to do sometimes get lost in day to day doing stuff, relationships, and the grind. I suppose I could say screw it and enforce time spent towards things that would be cooler, but fact remains there are obligations and only limited time. That, and many things I like to do it is hard to get paid for.

Unfortunately, unlike Rusty, I am currently NOT doing the stuff I would really love to do. Part of it my fault. I don't beat myself up because I did the best I could with very crappy cards. But, as you get older, it gets a lot tougher because of all the controls you have and complacency that is easy to get into that kills drive.

[Dio]

The emotions that tend to drive my actions include despair, stress, and disgust. I tend to employ methods that allow me to ameliorate the situations that cause significant stress through a variety of postive coping methods (these methods do not always function). The other two simply arise as a result of my personality with regards to many people on this world.

[Valka]

Fear is probably my big one, too. I often refrain from acting at all because I would rather not try (and have a chance to fail) than try and fail. Bad attitude, obviously, which I get angry at myself about...

In my B. Ed. classes in college, this was called "failure avoidance." And it's plagued me for most of my life.

My mother told me even before I started school (I was about 5) that if I ever failed in school, the teacher would put a black mark on my name and it would follow me for the rest of my life.

So I was damn scared of failing. It was embarrassing, I got angry at myself, and the first time I ever failed a high school course, my mother never let me forget it. She didn't give a damn that I'd done okay in English, social studies, biology, chemistry, typing, math, and aced my French. She basically waited until we were visiting my aunt and uncle and cousin, then announced that I'd failed a course. Naturally I felt like crap, and then she twisted the knife a little more by asking what was wrong. I told her that she'd embarrassed me in front of everybody, and she shrugged it off with a "so what" attitude. And that certainly wasn't the last time she made sure to draw attention to the fact that I'd failed at something in my life.

This is but one reason why I don't really miss my mother (she died just over a year ago). With parents like that, who needs enemies?

The thing about failure avoidance is that if you start something, you risk failing to finish it, or doing it correctly. So if you don't start it, you can't fail. Of course that wreaks havoc with university or jobs or just about anything else.

[gwillybj]

Fear would be my quick thought, but second-thinking it I would go with sadness.

[Unorthodox]

But everyone has a dominant emotion to motivate them; in the main character, Joy has the driver's seat, while her dad is led by Fear and her mom, iirc, has Disgust. 

Just Redboxed over the weekend with the kids.  Dad was led by Anger.  While Fear was at the console, they all kept looking back at anger for the actual decisions in a military styled command structure.   

Fairly disappointed with the movie, myself, and don't see what all the hubbub is about other than "Pixar made it so is the best thing ever".  Concept has been done before, and I found Joy especially annoying.  There were also a couple plot holes that ended up bothering me probably because I was already bored with the movie or I'd have just rolled with them.   

Anyway, I think more relevant to the conversation here than what EMOTION drives you (because the movie ISN'T REALLY ABOUT THAT), but rather can you identify your "core memories"? 

I can easily identify a lot of mine:

First time watching The Birds (age 5).  TERRIFIED, but fascinated, led to a long love of horror movies, and many sleepless nights being scared. 

Age 8, learning I COULD SCARE OTHERS led to the whole Halloween obsession, and to accept all the fears above and use them.  Fears I don't have (clowns) I have at least an academic appreciation for.  I've told people many times, the secret isn't that I'm not afraid of anything, it's that I'm afraid of almost everything.

Age 7, beating my (12 year old) brother at a video game led to my love of them. 

Watching The Sting made me pick up piano lessons, which has led to some really odd and diverse musical tastes.   

Then there are other areas I can't really define a single point:

At some point my "disgust" as described in the film flipped from trying to be included to trying to be different.  At some point, I gave up caring about being included and that slowly merged into a let's be different attitude.  Most prevalent in Halloween, but it filters to many other aspects. 

My hate of Christmas was a long slow spiral of disappointment, not a single event.  (and at least partially powered by the above being different attitude) 

Other things have swung differently.  Working the farm as a kid, I HATED that, it was a means to an end.  Never would have guessed gardening is a source of comfort now, and I can't explain why, for instance. 

[Rusty Edge]

   Anyway, I think more relevant to the conversation here than what EMOTION drives you (because the movie ISN'T REALLY ABOUT THAT), but rather can you identify your "core memories"? 

I can easily identify a lot of mine:

Core Memories. Good point. I don't know that they come readily to mind, but there's no reason why I can't share one from time to time.

When I was six years old ( I think) on the Saturday before Memorial Day I had a great day with my Dad. Back then we didn't have Monday holidays yet. I have no idea why, but my Dad took me along without my brother. We went to an old farm, I think it belonged to the father of a friend of my Dad. The weather was perfect.

They were shooting. Mostly it was clay pigeons, trap style, that is they were flying away from the shooter, much the same as ring-necked pheasants do. My Dad had a 24 Savage over and under. .22 magnum over 20 gauge shotgun. It had rifle sights, so it pretty much sucked as a shotgun.  I guess I was mostly watching and  helping find the undamaged clays and pick up empty shells until they ran completely out of clays.

Then we started shooting .22s My Dad also brought along his Remington semi-auto .22. He had a bag of cartridges that held about a 1000, and I got to empty the rifle into a target a few times. I loved it. I've loved shooting rifles ever since, and I developed an attachment for Memorial Day, thinking of it as the holiday with the best weather. Next year or the year after my Dad bought himself a 12 gauge Browning Auto-5.