We use the term “surrogate activity” to designate an activity that is directed toward an artificial
goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us
say, merely for the sake of the “fulfillment” that they get from pursuing the goal. Here is a rule of
thumb for the identification of surrogate activities. Given a person who devotes much time and
energy to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy
to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental
faculties in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain
goal X? If the answer is no, then the person’s pursuit of goal X is a surrogate activity. Hirohito’s
studies in marine biology clearly constituted a surrogate activity, since it is pretty certain that if
Hirohito had had to spend his time working at interesting non-scientific tasks in order to obtain the
necessities of life, he would not have felt deprived because he didn’t know all about the anatomy
and life-cycles of marine animals. On the other hand the pursuit of sex and love (for example) is
not a surrogate activity, because most people, even if their existence were otherwise satisfactory,
would feel deprived if they passed their lives without ever having a relationship with a member of
the opposite sex. (But pursuit of an excessive amount of sex, more than one really needs, can be
a surrogate activity.
