Do you remember the old food pyramid? Grains on the bottom, then fruit and veggies, then meat and dairy, then sweets at the top? There’s another really cool conceptual pyramid (one that’s not complete crap) created by a psychologist named Abraham Maslow. While the food pyramid (supposedly) illustrates the different tiers of basic nutrition, Maslow’s pyramid illustrates the different tiers of human needs for psychological health.
Life’s primary mission is its own propagation. And for pure propagation, the lowest tier of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, humans need air, food, sleep, shelter, and sex.
I highly recommend looking more at Maslow and his hierarchy, but the point I’m here to make today is that life is about the act of pursuing goals. For animals, it’s about the act of pursuing food, shelter, and sex. If you’re reading this blog, odds are you’ve conquered Maslow’s first tier of needs. And the second tier, which is having consistent, reliable access to food, shelter, and sex.
(If you’re hung up on the sex requirement, the first tier is just sexual release and I’m sure you’ve got that covered. Sexual intimacy with another human being is Tier 3.)
Surpassing Tiers 1 and 2 opens you up to the pursuit of much higher, more exciting goals. And whatever they may be, that is what gives life meaning and purpose: setting those goals, working to achieve them, and, succeed or fail, keep setting goals. Keep taking action, moving forward, and trying to make things better.
If humans have proven one thing on our brief stint on this planet it’s our insane ability to shape reality to our will.
Remember when I subtly and eloquently insinuated that you can’t control your friends, family, government, nature, physics, or your own body? Well, that’s completely true. But we do have a mind boggling amount of influence over all those things.
Think of it this way: If you want a chocolate bar, are you more likely to get one if you A) understand and accept that you have no control over the outside world or B) ask for a chocolate bar? Obviously there’s no guarantee you’ll get what you ask for. But the more often and the more skillfully you learn to ask, the more likely you are to get it.
The same applies to all human agency. Can you get the job you want? Maybe, but not if you don’t apply. Can you get the girl/boy/other you want? Maybe, but not if you don’t ask her/him/it out.
And stepping up from chocolate, jobs, and girls/boys/others, as long as we have morals and values, we have an internal drive to shape reality to those morals and values. And that’s a good thing. The world should be more like we want it to be. Believe it or not, we make the world a better place. Just look at how many babies don’t die every day. And if you don’t care about people, look at how great life is for pets! Look at all the veterinarians and animal sanctuaries there are in the world.
Okay, we’re also douches. I’m not denying it. We’ve driven animals to extinction. We poison nature, sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident. Not sure which is worse. But just remember, we are a part of nature. And not just that, we’re the part that cares about nature. You think the universe cares about the environment? Ever hear about Earth’s five mass extinctions?
We’re the ones who care about the world and it’s our responsibility to learn about the best ways to take care of it and ourselves, not just assume that if we care, we already know the best way. (P.S. That was a far too subtle jab at so-called environmentalists who oppose nuclear power and fracking without understanding the advantages they present to reducing carbon emissions. Of course you can understand them and still oppose them, but nuclear in particular is expensive as hell, but it’s nearly the cleanest – even counting radioactive waste – and per energy generated the safest – even counting Chernobyl and Fukushima – source of energy humans have ever harnessed. Don’t take my word for it. Look it up.)
Anyway, the point is, we humans do things. There are pros and cons. We got rid of smallpox. And created a dumbfounding amount of pollution. We learned how to produce a food surplus. And committed countless acts of genocide. Most of what we do isn’t quite that black and white. Like we built cities, but we built cities. We invented smartphones, but we invented smartphones. But the more we do, the more we learn. And the more we learn, the more positive the impact of the things we do next. As long as we’re willing to learn things that go against our preconceptions.
And that applies to you as an individual.
Remember when you were a kid and silly grown-ups would tell you that you could be anything you wanted to be? To a reasonable extent, that’s true. 99% of success is the right combination of hard work, effective learning, and trial and error. Just one tiny percent is random luck. (Unless, of course, you consider having the constitution to work hard and learn effectively “random luck”, which there is a fair argument for. But that’s beside the point.) The point is that most of what you get out of life is what you put into it.
So go!
