Self Actualization

"Now that you've found another key...

What are you going to play?"-the Beatles

After a long long long hunter gatherer period, for just a brief moment in the long development of humans, we developed agriculture. Then after a long long period of agriculture, for just a brief moment in history, we developed industrial, mass production commerce. Then after several long generations, the Information Age was born!

This is revolutionizing our minds, raising our intelligence, giving birth to a new global culture, even birthing the first global brain, as we collectively share everything we know in a searchable instantaneous way.

But yet a new, fifth paradigm-transforming wave is arriving, and has been, for at least a generation: Self actualization. This is a concept pioneered by Maslow. He asserted that the basic needs of humans must be met (e.g. food, shelter, warmth, security, sense of belongingness, etc.) before a person can achieve self-actualization - the need to be good, to be fully alive and to find meaning in life.

Despite the feeling you may get paying attention to the news, (an efficient collection of mostly the day's worst events), a larger number of the world's people than ever before are in fact, managing to get by ok right now. Let us set aside for a moment the fact that the way they are doing this is unsustainable, and there are huge pockets of poverty and inequality and oppression, as there have been for a long time.

The hopeful thing is that once basic needs are met- safety, food, etc, we just do not put up with meaningless lives. We have an innate drive to be of service, to give, to share. We need to creatively express the higher, more ephemeral, a sense of one's individual true purpose. This is self actualization, and it is no longer a luxury of the well off. 

It is almost inevitable, in my view, that we will soon have a global sharing culture in which great numbers of self actualized individuals steer Spaceship Earth into the future from the grassroots level. The greatest obstacle to this vision is allowing ourselves to fall victim to paralyzing fear, or allowing injustice and oppression to go unchallenged.

(From Unitics:)

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