A TASK FOR YOU (PP15)
Here’s sequel 15 of my Epicurean Happiness Guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” (from Chapter 2: NEEDS)
> With Max-Neef’s table in hand, list several of the ways you satisfy your daily needs, emphasizing those you think might be unique or different from others’. You can skip the needs in the subsistence category; they are no-brainers (unless you have a need for oatmeal every morning because your mother told you every day of your life that God would love you more). Plus some of them aren’t, uh, meant to be shared.
> Give a little thought to your childhood and beyond, such as your first marriage that “failed,” to see if doing so gives you insights into why you may have particular needs at this point in time.
> See how many you can plug into one of the categories on Max-Neef’s matrix. Do you have a need in at least three or more categories?
It’s interesting to note (or maybe it’s not all that interesting) that we don’t always want what we need. For example, most kids don’t want three daily servings of vegetables. Sun-lovers don’t want to wear hats and sunscreen. Sufferers of kidney disease don’t want daily dialysis. Cancer patients don’t want needles stuck in the back of their hand every Wednesday. And most of us don’t take a shine to examining our own lives.
To read my complete Epicurean Happiness Guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” go to http://stressfreedomguide.com/
Max-Neef’s Fundamental Human Needs (PP12)
Here’s sequel 12 my Epicurean Happiness Guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” (Part 2 of Chapter 2: NEEDS)
NEEDS (2)
Max-Neef’s Fundamental Human Needs
Manfred Max-Neef is the Chilean economist whose particular interest is in the struggle of Third World countries to survive and thrive. His research on a diversity of cultures led him to create the Max-Neef Model of Human-Scale Development, which includes a matrix on which he identifies fundamental needs on one axis and satisfiers of these needs on the other axis, satisfiers relating to personal qualities (how to be), mechanisms (what to have), actions (what to do), and settings (where to do it).
Unlike Maslow, Max-Neef does not believe that human needs must be satisfied in sequential order. The matrix tells us, for example, that to fulfill our need to create, to express ourselves through sculpture, for instance, the qualities we would ideally possess are a fertile imagination so that we are fluent with ideas, curiosity about the best materials and methods, the boldness it takes to create something unique, and the autonomy to make our own decisions and act independent of others’ opinions and suggestions. We would also have abilities, talents, skills and knowledge of techniques, i.e., mechanisms. Our actions may be to interpret, design, plan and experiment with materials. Working among like-minded artists and having the motivation of an upcoming show or sale where our efforts may earn appreciation and accolades, maybe even a few bucks, foster an ideal milieu for our artistic growth, that is, conditions, surroundings and settings. Max-Neef would tell us that there are no significant obstacles between us and the masterpiece of our dreams.
It may be useful to note that Max-Neef draws a careful distinction between needs and satisfiers. For example, he does not consider food and shelter to be needs, but satisfiers of the fundamental need for subsistence. Likewise, he considers education, investigation, stimulation and meditation as satisfiers of the need for understanding.
He considers fundamental human needs to be universal, that is, the same in all cultures throughout the ages; and satisfiers to vary among cultures and times.
Max-Neef notes that while only a few of the needs he describes require material means to be fulfilled, we in industrialized countries attempt to satisfy them all through material means. But by the time you’ve completed this e-guide, you won’t anymore, because (knock on wood) you’ll have discovered why that doesn’t work out so well.
See also:
http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/background/maxneef.htm
To read my complete Epicurean Happiness Guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” go to http://stressfreedomguide.com/
intoxicated by liberation philosophy
“The best of life is but intoxication.” (Byron)
In my younger days it was vodka, whiskey, wine, sex, romantic love, theater, movies, literature, philosophy I got intoxicated with. Nowadays it’s mostly just literature and philosophy. Luckily I take up ideas slowly and forget them fast (some of my friends suggest that this could possibly be a retarded effect of all the alcohol I got intoxicated with in my younger days), so I can re-read pages again and again on human bondage and liberation by Epicurus, Michel Montaigne, Voltaire, Esther Vilar, Bertrand Russell, Kurt Vonnegut, Manfred Max-Neef and about a dozen of other authors experiencing every time almost the same thrill I felt when I first read them. Is this an anticipation of the beatitudes promised by Alzheimer ‘s?
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