“Man is a perpetually wanting animal” – Maslow
One of the greatest challenges we face in modernity is clarifying what truly underpins happiness. Competing traditions define it in different ways, yet a balanced account understands happiness as a state of well-being that arises when core needs are sufficiently met, desires are moderated with mindfulness, and life is experienced with a sense of meaning, balance and fulfilment (Diener 1984, Diener & Seligman 2004, Ryan & Deci 2000, Sen 1999, Kabat-Zinn 1990, Brown & Ryan 2003). The difficulty, however, lies in the sheer noise of contemporary life: endless things to buy, places to visit, people to meet, goals to pursue. These demands move in conjunction with one another and present themselves as natural or inevitable – or, to borrow Marx’s (1867) term, reified. Yet many of the things we chase today may be better understood not as timeless human needs but as socially manufactured wants, constructs that have emerged largely within the last century (Veblen 1899, Galbraith 1958, Marcuse 1964, Baudrillard 1970, Bauman 2007). The blurring of lines between needs and wants has made happiness increasingly elusive, demanding careful reflection on how we navigate comfort, consumption and meaning in our lives.
A common frustration in the human condition today may stem from our tendency to blur the line between wants and needs (Veblen 1899, Galbraith 1958, Marcuse 1964, Bauman 1998, 2007). In doing so, we institutionalise socially manufactured desires, elevating them to the status of necessities despite their lack of connection to our core human requirements of survival, esteem, or self-actualisation. The noise of contemporary life amplifies this confusion, making it increasingly difficult to discern what we truly require from what we are merely conditioned to crave. These manufactured wants are persuasive precisely because they promise social acceptance, respect and recognition – markers of worth in the collective (Veblen 1899, Marcuse 1964, Bauman 1998 & 2007, Baudrillard 1970).
This malignment generates profound challenges, and the culmination of these challenges finds vivid expression in Cy Twombly’s Bacchus series. Through the figure of a Roman god synonymous with excess, Twombly captures the passion, frenzy and aggression that erupt when wants overwhelm needs. Maslow reminds us that “man is a perpetually wanting animal” and the consequences of this condition are inscribed in the raw, graphic nature of Twombly’s canvases, where the fine line between adequately met needs and excessive wants collapses into a violent pursuit. The association of Bacchus with both Roman and Greek traditions also invites a deeper question: is this unrelenting drive toward excess a fundamental part of human nature, and if so, can it be harnessed for our betterment rather than our detriment?
The primary dimension of this challenge lies in the very nature of happiness itself. Happiness is not a singular or uniform experience; it varies from person to person and expresses itself in many different ways. What brings one individual contentment may leave another unfulfilled. Yet modern life often obscures this reality: we are constantly shown, and sold, the things that supposedly make others happy. Lacking any true anchoring in our own needs, we pursue these borrowed markers of happiness in the hope they will fulfil us as well. More often than not, however, this pursuit ends in emptiness or dissatisfaction. We confuse the satisfaction and acceptance we see in others with what is genuinely right for ourselves. Despite these variations, I believe there exists a shared foundation – a universal meta-structure of variables that underpins happiness for us all. I have built an analytical framework that allows us to see happiness not as a random or purely subjective phenomenon, but as a pattern shaped by prevalent human conditions, even as each of us fills the details differently. This framework is the result of my own personal experience with happiness and should not be considered a guarantee to being happy, nor is it representative of other people’s happiness.
To better understand what truly drives happiness, I propose three core forces at play: needs, wants and mindfulness. These variables shape not only our sense of fulfilment but also much of the dissatisfaction characteristic of modern life. If we are to move forward – to confront directly what makes us happy and what corrodes that happiness – we must first establish a clear understanding of these forces and how they interact with one another. To illustrate this tension between needs, wants and mindfulness I have constructed a diagram mapping the relationship between consumption and happiness. As shown, the satisfaction of basic physiological needs initially increases happiness, represented by the upward slope of the curve. Beyond this threshold, further consumption continues to contribute to wellbeing until it reaches a peak, denoted as C*, the point of optimal balance between needs and wants. However, once consumption surpasses this point, happiness begins to decline. The downward trajectory represents the corrosive effect of institutionalising wants as needs – where excess consumption not only fails to deliver greater fulfilment but actively undermines it. In what follows, I will examine each of these variables in turn — needs, wants, and mindfulness — to demonstrate how their interaction defines the conditions of happiness, and how their misalignment is powerfully expressed in Twombly’s Bacchus series.
Equation
Happiness = (Needs x (1 + Mindfulness)) / (Wants x (1 – Mindfulness))
*Note, this equation is structural not mathematical. This equation is not a reduction of the lived experience but an analytical framework for the purpose of this essay.
Diagram
*Note, consumption within the graph has a flexible definition. I do not mean consumption in the strict sense of purchasing goods or services, but consumption of aspects of the world that contribute to the satisfaction of needs/desires within the hierarchy of needs.
Variables
For the definition of needs, I adopt Maslow’s hierarchy. At the base lie physiological needs – food, water, sleep – followed by safety needs such as housing, income and protection from danger. Beyond these, more complex needs emerge such as love and belonging through family, friendship, intimacy and community; then esteem through recognition and being respected; finally, self-actualisation through personal growth, purpose and authenticity. The initial needs associated with survival can be understood as consumption at the threshold where physiological needs intersect with the happiness curve. These survival needs take precedence, but once they are satisfied, we ascend the hierarchy toward higher-order needs culminating in self-actualisation. This progression occupies the region of the curve between the fulfilment of physiological needs and the optimal point C*.
It is important to clarify that happiness here is not derived from consumption in the narrow sense of purchasing goods, but rather from the broader consumption of the world’s resources, relationships and opportunities necessary to satisfy the hierarchy of needs. This is because higher-order needs often resist material fulfilment whereas lower needs within the hierarchy are satisfied through goods and services (food, housing). Within the structural equation, the more needs we meet, the greater our happiness becomes, since increasing the numerator – needs – raises the overall value of happiness, all else being equal.
One way to think about a want is as a chosen means of attempting to satisfy a given need. While the need is the end goal, the want is the chosen method or expression of desire through which we attempt to meet that goal. Needs are universal across cultures, but wants are shaped by personal preferences, cultural contexts, and situational factors. Unlike needs, which have natural limits, wants are open-ended and can proliferate without clear boundaries. In the structural equation, holding circumstances constant, an increase in wants enlarges the denominator, thereby reducing overall happiness. Diagrammatically, this dynamic is captured in the downward slope of the curve beyond C*, where the pursuit of excessive wants leads to diminishing returns. This cycle is often described as the hedonic treadmill (Brickman & Campbell 1971): each new want offers a temporary uplift before resetting the baseline of happiness, prompting yet more striving without lasting fulfilment. It is important to note that wants are not inherently negative. They add colour, variety, and individuality to life. The problem arises when wants overshadow or replace needs – especially beyond C* – where they cease to enrich wellbeing and instead corrode it.
Modern economies and advertising intensify this problem by manufacturing wants and blurring the distinction between genuine need satisfaction and socially conditioned desires (Veblen 1899, Galbraith 1958, Marcuse 1964, Bauman 2007, Baudrillard 1970). This process results in the institutionalisation of wants as needs, where socially constructed desires are elevated to the status of essentials. A second dimension of this condition is comparison and competition: socially derived constructs come to be viewed as fundamental necessities for respected inclusion, acceptance, and participation in the collective (Marwick 2013, Twenge 2017). The expansion of wants therefore traps individuals of cycles of consumption, generating instability in happiness that is vulnerable not only to novelty-seeking and social pressures but also to the corrosive comparisons that modernity continually fosters. Yet this cycle is not confined to the accumulation of goods and services. It can equally be driven by the pursuit of experiences, friendships, or other markers of meaning that, while appearing to satisfy higher needs, may still bypass the underlying foundations of security, belonging, and sufficiency. In such cases, the search for fulfilment risks becoming another restless chase, where even relationships and experiences are consumed in the same spirit as commodities.
Mindfulness can act as a moderating force, helping to balance wants with the satisfaction of needs (Kabat-Zinn 1990, Brown & Ryan 2003, Ryan & Deci 2000). As Kabat-Zinn (1990) argues, mindfulness is a discipline of paying attention to the present moment with intentionality and acceptance, a practice that interrupts the cycles of craving and reorients us toward balance and sufficiency. It scales down the pressure of cravings, comparison, and what is described as the ‘fear of missing out’. In terms of the structural equation, mindfulness reduces the urgency of wants by helping us see simpler and more sustainable ways of meeting underlying needs, thereby shrinking the denominator. At the same time, mindfulness deepens our appreciation of needs that are already met – presence and gratitude make these satisfactions feel fuller, raising the numerator without altering external circumstances.
Practicing mindfulness may reduce the level of consumption we feel is necessary to experience contentment. It keeps us within the healthy range of the curve, between the fulfilment of physiological needs and the optimal point C*, rather than sliding down into the corrosive region of overconsumption. Mindfulness enriches the experience of needs by preventing wants from being mistaken as necessities. In this way, it creates a balance between sufficiency and restraint, shifting the focus of happiness from external fulfilment to internal calibration. By cultivating awareness and presence, mindfulness interrupts the cycle of ever-escalating wants and resets satisfaction at a more sustainable baseline. It reorients markers of success away from external symbols such as possessions and status, and toward internal ones such as meaning, relationships and authenticity. Anchoring us in the present, mindfulness reduces both anxiety about future desires and regret about unmet ones, thereby stabilising happiness over time.
Ultimately, mindfulness makes happiness less dependent on material conditions. Even modest levels of fulfilment can feel abundant when attended to with gratitude. In contrast, unhappiness often stems from mistaking wants for needs; mindfulness sharpens our perception, clarifying which satisfactions are genuine and which are distractions. In consumer-driven societies especially, mindfulness offers resistance against the relentless stimulation of wants through media and social comparison, ensuring that happiness remains grounded in proportion and presence rather than excess.
Yet this progression through the hierarchy is neither fixed nor linear (Maslow 1954, Koltko-Rivera 2006, Deci & Ryan 2000, Tedeschi & Calhoun 2004). Life regularly unsettles its trajectory, particularly in moments of grief or illness. When such afflictions take hold, the pursuit of esteem or self-actualisation recedes, and the priority shifts decisively back toward the alleviation of sufferation and the restoration of basic stability. In these moments, our most fundamental needs – food, rest, safety and above all the support of others – reassert themselves as paramount. Relationships, ordinarily understood as part of belonging or esteem, reveal their deeper role as a foundation of physiological and safety needs. When these are fractured or threatened, the entire structure of our priorities is reordered. Other aspirations do not disappear, but they are placed in abeyance until the more urgent demands of recovery and resilience are met.
There is also the challenge of circumstance. The role of want satisfaction as a factor in shaping happiness is deeply contingent on context (Maslow 1954, Sen 1999, Tay & Diener 2011, Inglehart & Welzel 2005, Diener & Seligman 2004). The dynamics of consumption and fulfilment in wealthy Western democracies differ profoundly from those regions marked by scarcity or instability. In this sense, the equation remains valid, but its interpretation shifts with the conditions upon which it rests. The means by which needs are satisfied are not universal, but situational – shaped by cultural, economic and political environments. When confronted with different structural realities such as inequality, poverty or systemic challenges, the trajectory through Maslow’s hierarchy is fundamentally altered. In such contexts, survival displaces purpose, and the pursuit of self-actualisation yields to immediate necessity of securing food, shelter and safety. These needs are equally fundamental. There is no secure basis upon which to judge or measure happiness, nor is there an ability to create a scoring system that ranks one person’s happiness above another depending on their satisfactions at different levels of the hierarchy.
That is to say happiness cannot be reduced to a hierarchy of worth, but instead must be understood as a shifting balance, where each tier of need is vital in its own right (Maslow 1954, Tay & Diener 2011). The satisfaction of higher-order needs such as self-actualisation does not guarantee a greater degree of happiness than the fulfilment of physiological or safety needs. One individual engaged in self-actualisation may not be ‘happier’ than another whose efforts are directed toward survival. Each tier carries its own weight and significance, and happiness arises not from comparison across levels but from the sufficiency of needs being met within the context of one’s lived circumstances.
A final challenge concerns the promises attached to specific wants within the context of social groups (Bauman 2007, Zuboff 2019, Turkle 2011, Twenge 2017, Marwick 2013). The rise of social media and similar platforms has intensified comparison, introducing new obstacles to gratitude, mindfulness, and appreciation of one’s circumstances relative to others. These platforms accelerate the institutionalisation of wants by elevating socially manufactured desires into apparent necessities, compounding the tension between superficial aspiration and underlying need. The result is a new level of competition that generates systemic pressures on wellbeing, eroding happiness on an unprecedented scale and speed.
Taken together, these three variables – needs, wants, and mindfulness – provide a structural lens through which to understand the conditions of happiness and its erosion. When needs are sufficiently met and moderated by mindfulness, happiness is stabilised. When wants proliferate unchecked, particularly when they are institutionalised as needs, the balance collapses and wellbeing deteriorates. This tension between adequacy and excess is not only theoretical but vividly embodied in art. Cy Twombly’s Bacchus series offers a powerful visual metaphor of the cycles of craving, frenzy and decline that emerge when wants overwhelm or overpower needs and mindfulness is absent. In the following section, I turn to Twombly’s work to explore how these psychological dynamics are dramatized on canvas.
Application: Cy Twombly Bacchus
Cy Twombly – Bacchus, Tate Modern. Photograph taken by author, 2022.
Referencing Maslow’s magnum opus with the claim “man is a perpetually wanting animal” highlights a central challenge of human nature: our desires are endless (Maslow 1954). Twombly vividly brings the troubles of this reality to life. This series takes its namesake from Roman mythology with Bacchus symbolising a profound truth about human psychology – that we are irresistibly drawn to indulgence and transgression (Otto 1965, Seaford 2006, Dodds 1951). Synonymous with the vine and wine consumption, wine becomes an emblem of this condition. It loosens and inspires us; offering joy and creativity, yet it just as easily overwhelms us when taken too far.
The mythology surrounding Bacchus illustrates the dangers of mistaking fleeting pleasures for lasting fulfilment, where wants, seductive in their immediacy, become corrosive when confused with core needs. Bacchus dramatizes how quickly joy, play, and release can tip into frenzy – how the pursuit of pleasure, if left unmoderated, can spiral into destruction – the hedonic treadmill that we discussed past the point of C* on the diagram above. Bacchus’ very essence embodies the precarious crossing of the line between balance and excess, restraint and abandon (Otto 1965, Dodds 1951, Seaford 2006, Burkert 1985). In this sense, Bacchus symbolises the enduring human temptation to surrender fully to passion, pleasure or madness, even at the cost of stability and wellbeing.
Bacchus, then, may be read as a mythological dramatization that resonates with the dynamics expressed in my framework. His intoxicating force embodies the danger of wants mistaken for needs, where fleeting desires are elevated into supposed essentials. While needs, in Maslow’s sense, are finite and stabilising, the wants associated with Bacchus are endless, seductive, and corrosive when pursued without limit. The absence of mindfulness is what allows this spiral to take hold, collapsing restraint and tipping joy into frenzy. In this way, Bacchus mirrors the structural equation of happiness: as wants proliferate unchecked, mindfulness recedes, balance gives way to excess and fulfilment erodes.
Cy Twombly’s Bacchus series captures this collapse on canvas, his looping, aggressive brush enacting the very cycles of desire, abandon and decline that Bacchus symbolises. The large circular forms dominate the surface with a restless energy, cycling endlessly yet arriving nowhere. A visual theatre of pain, struggle and suffering dominates, the visual representation of the hedonic treadmill. Where the pursuit of ever-expanding wants delivers no lasting fulfilment. These gestures mimic the futile attempt to recapture the contentment once reached at point C* on the happiness curve, only to find diminishing or even corrosive returns.
The dripping paint suggests as lack of control, as though the artist were in a blind rage – satisfying wants without ever touching the underlying needs. This chaotic release could be seen as embodying the institutionalisation of wants as needs: socially manufactured desires mistaken for essentials and pursued with unrelenting intensity. The result many not elevation but descent, as happiness slides into dissatisfaction. Each desire, once attained, gives way to the next, and without mindfulness this restless pursuit becomes corrosive, turning the natural progression up the hierarchy into a chase that undermines the wellbeing it seeks to secure. This aggression, this sense of frenzy, may itself be symptomatic of the failure of promises to be fulfilled – the moment when socially manufactured wants reveal their emptiness, leaving frustration in place of fulfilment.
The chosen colour intensifies this effect. The electric red saturating the canvases connotes danger, violence and urgency, symbolising the aggression and exhaustion produced when consumption replaces contentment and striving displaces sufficiency. The synergy between Maslow’s claim that man is ‘perpetually wanting’ and Twombly’s visual dramatization, pointing toward a compelling interpretation. Regardless of social context – whether in wealthy democracies or regions of relative scarcity – the principle endures. Once survival needs are met, attention shifts to the next desire, the next aspiration, the next ‘best’ thing. This perpetual cycle, though natural, carries a corrosive potential, threatening the stability that need satisfaction is meant to secure.
The absence of mindfulness is crucial here. Nothing intervenes to break the cycles of brushstrokes, to pause the frenzy, to recalibrate balance between needs and wants. Instead, what we see is an inner maelstrom. The canvases culminate in a direct routing of raw emotion onto the surface without reflection or regulation. In this sense, Twombly’s Bacchus makes visible what happens when mindfulness is neglected: wants escalate, needs go unexamined, and happiness disintegrates into restless consumption. Mindfulness enables us to place the satisfaction of our desires and needs in proper context. It is through mindfulness that we recognise the reality of being ‘perpetually wanting’ while resisting the compulsions that flow from it. Returning to the question posed at the outset of this essay, it is mindfulness that allows us to moderate and contain desire, transforming an endless chase into a source of balance and, ultimately betterment.
Had mindfulness entered the process, the circular strokes might have broken, opened or paused – introducing proportion, restraint, and even silence. Its absence, however, enacts the misalignment of means and ends, where the pursuit of pleasure collapses into excess and the promise of fulfilment dissolves into agitation. Twombly’s paintings thus dramatize, at room scale, the psychological truth that happiness requires the mindful regulation of wants in the service of needs; without such balance, passion tips inevitably into frenzy.
It is this unrelenting frenzy that fuels dissatisfaction within the natural progression up the hierarchy of needs. The satisfaction of higher-order aspirations does not necessarily yield greater happiness than the fulfilment of basic survival needs. Yet modernity – through mass media, advertising and the manufacture of socially derived desires – has obscured this truth, distorting our understanding of what genuinely sustains both contentment and fulfilment.
I remember standing before these canvases and being overcome with emotion. They stirred memories of difficult experiences in my own life – moments of fear and violence, such as witnessing the shooting of a jewellery store guard, alongside other struggles that surfaced from the depths of memory. The encounter became a harrowing ordeal of recollection, as toxic memories pressed against the surface of consciousness. In this sense, the canvases did not merely present abstraction; they embodied the culmination of struggle bound up with the human condition, illuminating the severity and violence that can accompany the challenges of meeting both our basic and more complex needs in society today. What struck me most was how these struggles reflected profound truths about what people are willing to do to one another in order to secure survival or to achieve their own state of ‘happiness’ or ‘contentment’ – often at the expense of others’ wellbeing. The risks people take to secure something for themselves highlight the fragility and volatility of human desire when it is left unchecked. Here, the role of mindfulness becomes critical: it moderates wants and desires in the service of genuine needs, reminding us that life is not zero-sum but a series of trade-offs that demand balance, perspective and restraint.
Conclusion
Happiness cannot be reduced to consumption, nor can it be ranked by a hierarchy that privileges some needs over others. As Maslow and his interpreters remind us, life continually unsettles our priorities: grief, illness, and differing contexts shift our trajectories, showing that survival, safety, belonging, esteem and self-actualisation are all fundamental in their own right. Modernity complicates this further by manufacturing wants and presenting them as needs, trapping us in the hedonic treadmill where fulfilment dissolves into restless striving.
Mindfulness can be seen as a corrective force. It interrupts the escalation of wants, deepens appreciation of already met needs, and restores proportion to the pursuit of fulfilment. In Kabat-Zinn’s sense, mindfulness grounds us in the present moment, cultivating gratitude and sufficiency even within modest conditions. It transforms happiness from a chase after novelty into a practice of balance and presence.
Twombly’s Bacchus series makes this dynamic visible. His violent loops and searing reds dramatize what happens when mindfulness is absent: wants spiral into frenzy, joy collapses into excess and balance is lost to chaos. Yet embedded in these canvases is also a latent possibility – that the cycles of passion might pause, open, and reform if tempered by reflection and restraint.
When I stood before these canvases, I was overcome with memories of fear and violence – moments of witnessing suffering including the shooting of a jewellery store guard. These paintings become more than abstraction: they embodied the struggles bound up with the human condition, the severity and violence that can arise when people pursue survival or happiness at the expense of others. They suggest that unchecked desire can be corrosive to personal wellbeing and may also undermine our shared humanity. Here, mindfulness is crucial – it allows us to see that life is not a zero-sum game, but a series of trade-offs requiring balance, restraint, and perspective.
One way to think about the pursuit of happiness is not as abolishing desire but as calibrating it. It requires meeting needs sufficiently, choosing wants proportionately, and cultivating the mindfulness to hold both in balance. In this equilibrium lies the possibility of a happiness that endures – not fleeting or corrosive, but grounded in what is essential, meaningful and sustainable.
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