Because man's original need to hunt in order to survive has all but disappeared, we are now free to replace it with whatever symbolic substitution takes our fancy, just so long as it contains some of the basic elements. Today, for most people, "going to work" is the major substitute for hunting. For the lucky ones, the nature of their daily work is sufficiently close to the pattern of the primeval hunt to be satisfying. The executives who set off in the morning, eager to make a 'killing' in the city, with their schemes and strategies, their team tactics and targets, their immediate aims and long-term goals, hoping to confirm a contract or close a deal. And eventually to bring home the bacon, are the pseudo-hunters of modern times.

But for many other people, their work is so boringly repetitive that it provides little of the challenge or the hunt and is a poor substitute for it. If we were descendants of cud-chewing herbivores, this would not matter, but we are not. People whose work is boring become restless and frustrated. They have to find other outlets for their hunter. Some of these outlets are creative. Others can be highly destructive. For many individuals, a lack of job satisfaction, which can usually be traced to a lack or potential for symbolic hunting, is only made tolerable by the development of some kind of hobby or private passion.