The evolutionary roots of how you think, connect, and lead
This model shows how humans evolved from single-celled organisms to the creatures we are today. It gives a biologically based view of how much complexity we can hold, and how as we developed, each level of new capacity unlocked more advanced abilities for us to connect and protect ourselves, our species, and — when we are at our best — our future.
When we are at our best, we can access all of these levels, and the complexity they unlock. When under threat, we often lose our ability to hold all of this complexity, and suffer for it.
It begins with sensation. The first living things were single-celled organisms — like amoebas — with just three core abilities: they could sense, seek, and avoid. These three abilities evolved as organisms evolved.
Let's start first with what an amoeba can sense. It senses only basic chemicals like nutrients and toxins. It can move towards nutrients and away from toxins. That's it. It has no memory, no planning, no awareness of others. Just raw sensation and two drives that will persist through every layer of evolution, all the way up to us.
Slightly more complex — but still very simple organisms — like worms, take these raw sensations and process them as a fundamental feeling: pain.
The next major development was memory. We see this come online in fish, who — unlike worms — have developed a hippocampus. Now the organism doesn't just react to what is here in the present; it remembers what happened in the past. It remembers when a predator struck, where the best food was. And with memory comes a new form of pain:fear — pain remembered, pain anticipated.
The next revolution came in the form of empathy, and our ability to sense other's nervous systems. You begin to see this clearly in mammalian physiology: Oxytocin. Mirror neurons. Ventral vagal circuits. For the first time, an organism's nervous system is coupled to other nervous systems. A rat will work to free a trapped companion even when food is available nearby. That's not redirected seeking — that's a genuinely new capacity. And with it comes a new pain: fear for others. You can now suffer for someone else's suffering.
When imagination arrives, we see another major jump. Along with an expanded prefrontal cortex comes the ability to simulate a future that doesn't exist yet. Causal chains. If-then reasoning. Planning. The world is no longer just what is, what was, and what others feel — it's also what could be. And with imagination comes a new pain: anxiety — suffering for things that haven't happened and may never happen.
When meaning arrives, we cross into something unprecedented — the capacity to conceive of things that transcend your own survival. Justice. Legacy. Beauty. Purpose. A human can endure physical pain, override learned fear, leave their group, and pursue a plan they know might fail — because they've decided something matters more than they do. And with meaning comes the deepest pain: existential suffering — the ache of falling short, of mortality, of meaninglessness.
Five substrates of complexity. Two drives running through them all. Pursuing (seek pleasure) and Protecting (avoid pain) each produce different emotional states at each substrate — when the drive works, when it doesn't. The hardest case is when seeking is thwarted: the same block produces either a turn inward (inadequacy) or a turn outward (anger), and which way it goes is one of the most diagnostic things about a person.
| Substrate | Pursuing · seek pleasure | Protecting · avoid pain | Background pain | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drive | Achieved | Inward · sad | Outward · mad | Drive | Worked | Triggered | ||
🦠 Egoist the present Raw sensation: gradients, temperature, pressure | Pleasure (food) | Pleasure ◇ | Listless / Numb ◆ | Distress / Disgust ◆ | Withdraw / escape | Relief ◇ | Pain / Startle ◆ | Physical pain |
🐟 Veteran the past Patterns, recognition, memory | Anticipation | Eager / Savoring / Curious ▲ | Frustration / Thwarted / Yearning / Restless ⊕ | Rage / Aversion ◆ ⚠ | Fight / flight / freeze | Vindicated / Victorious / Freed ▲ | Fear / Rage / Panic ▲ ⚠ | Fear pain remembered & anticipated |
🐭 Lover others Emotional states of others, social signals, trust | Love | Play / Love / Compassion / Connection ★ | Lonely / Shame ◆ | Betrayed / Contempt ◆ | Defend group over self | Pride ◇ | Panic / Sadness / Grief ▲ | Fear for others empathic pain |
🦍 Strategist the future Hypothetical futures, causal chains | Hope | Triumph / Delight / Thrill ▲ | Inferior / Bleak / Stuck ▲ | Outrage / Repugnance ◆ | Defend the future | Clarity / Confidence / Resolution ▲ | Overwhelmed / Despair / Trapped ▲ | Anxiety pain about things that haven't happened |
🧑 Visionary the enduring Meaning, values, identity, legacy | Devotion | Pride / Gratitude / Awe ▲ | Hollow / Bereft / Stagnant ▲ | Moral Fury / Moral Disgust ◆ | Die for / save what I believe in | Honor / Glory / Whole ▲ | Anhedonia / Disillusioned / Nihilistic / Disassociated ⊕ | Existential pain falling short, mortality, meaninglessness |
The full model above shows the layers of complexity. The best leaders know that great things happen when we reach the simplicity on the other side of complexity.
The simpler pattern: two drives that thread through every layer, and five substrate-archetypes — one per layer — that name what kind of complexity is being held. Drives are always running. Substrate-archetypes come online or don't, depending on who you are and what's happening.
The two drives are ancient and always active — Pursuing seeks pleasure, Protecting avoids pain, and they run through every substrate from amoeba to human. The five substrate-archetypes are levels of complexity the nervous system can hold. When we struggle, we often find we're over-relying on one of these drives or archetypes. Thinking about what else we can access often gives us a greater range of possibility.
Under pressure, the most recently evolved capacities often go quiet first. Meaning fades. Then strategic thinking narrows. Then empathy contracts. What remains are the two ancient drives — Pursuing and Protecting — running without the Lover, Strategist, or Visionary to guide them. The work of leadership under pressure is noticing which archetypes have gone offline and bringing them back.
Two ancient drives.
Five substrates they run through.
The work isn't to do all of these things at once. It's to know which patterns we tend to fall into and build our capacity to do something different, when that would help us.
Most of us lean on two or three of the five — and lose access to the others under pressure. A short, scenario-based self-assessment maps where you start, where you go when stressed, and which capacities are quietest in you right now.