[Neurons] 2014 "Neurons" Meta Reflections #24
L. Michael Hall
meta at acsol.net
Mon Jun 23 09:56:55 EDT 2014
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections 2014 #24
June 23, 2014
LIVING LIFE AT TOO LOW A LEVEL
At what level are you living your life? Strange question, right? The level
of life here refers to the motivational levels that Abraham Maslow
identified in his classic work, Motivation and Personality (1954/ 1970).
There are two fundamental levels.
The Deficiency Level: This level of needs that drive us refer to all of the
physical and psychological needs that make up the first four levels of his
hierarchy: survival, safety and stability, love and affection (social), and
one's sense of importance about oneself (self). The mechanism that drives
the needs at this level in all of these dimensions of human experience is
lack. When we lack, we have a deficiency and from that deficiency we are
driven to gratify the need. This is the basic form of "motivation" that we
all experience in life and it is related to the requirements of life for
being able to function decently well. And at this level, when you gratify
the need sufficiently (not perfectly, not at 100%), the need goes away. The
emotional drive of deficiency disappears. When it is not met sufficiently,
then the need becomes desperate. And that's when we tend to do things that
violate and damage ourselves and others.
The Abundance or Being Level: This level transcends the lower level of the
D-needs and operates by an entirely different mechanism. These are the
uniquely human needs and begin with knowledge, meaning, truth, justice,
beauty, music, mathematics, order, excellence, contribution, making a
difference, etc. Unlike the deficiency needs that go away when gratified,
these grow and abound when gratified. Unlike the deficiency needs that are
instrumental and serve a higher purpose, these needs are non-instrumental.
They are valuable and precious in and of themselves. Unlike the deficiency
needs that are means to some other end, these are an end in themselves. For
that reason, Maslow called them B-needs (Being).
Maslow also noted in his extensive studies and research in this area that
the lower-needs are needs that we share with the higher intelligence
animals. The social animals need all of the D-needs just as we do. None of
those needs are uniquely human. They are animal needs. Regarding this,
Maslow urged, "Be a good animal! Have healthy appetites! And go beyond
these needs to those that are the truly human needs.
So, again, at what level are you living? Well, the question is a bit tricky
because you, like me, are living at all of those levels. And that's because
all of those needs are operational in you. They are requirements for your
physical survival and your social and psychological well-being. The
question this is this: How well are you coping with these needs? How
healthily are you gratifying the deficiency needs so that you are moving on
to the human being needs?
The problem is that without instincts, unlike the animals, we do not
automatically and intuitively know what the impulses that drive us are, what
they stand for, and how to gratify them. The animals do; we do not. That's
why knowledge and meaning and truth are among the most fundamental
being needs. We need accurate knowledge so that we can sufficiently gratify
the needs. If we do not have truth to do so, then we can create neurotic
needs.
Neurotic needs is how we get stuck at a lower level. In this case, the
mis-information distorts the drive and typically we create addictions.
Typical also is that we are trying to fulfill a self-actualization need
through a gratification that is designed for a lower need. For example, a
person may seek love by using food as a gratification. "Food" is endowed
with too much meaning- it is love, the good life, success, relaxation, etc.
Now instead of food satisfying us, gratifying the drive for it, we eat more
and more and cannot get enough. We push through the natural thresholds
eating more and more and more. We can't stop. To stop denies all of these
"secondary gains" and psychological values that have been connected to it.
D-needs and their drives go away with adequate gratification. If it doesn't
go away, we are probably not gratifying the actual drive (hunger) but a
psychological drive that may be a self-actualization drive. So the pattern
of D-needs- the more, the less -doesn't apply. What's operational is the
B-need pattern- the more, the more. With the D-needs, the more you truly
gratify the need, the less it drives you. With the B-needs, the more you
truly gratify the need, the strong it becomes. It becomes more and more.
This distinction enables us to understand what's wrong with ourselves and
others. When a person's drives are driving, driving, driving them and
there's no satisfaction. When a person is singing, "I get no satisfaction!"
regarding the lower needs, then that person's needs are contaminated by the
higher needs. That is the person is trying to self-actualize at too low a
level and with too low a need. And that's why by over-loading the meaning
of the need with too much meaning and/or distorted meaning- the need becomes
neurotic.
This is the factor by which many people semantically over-load various lower
needs, animal needs, so that they become addictions. And when they load it
with distorted meanings, then their semantics can create "drives" that feel
right and natural and intuitive to them- but that are completely distorted
and destructive. And knowing this mechanism that creates the misery informs
us about how to correct the problem: we reverse the semantic over-loading
and we correct the distorted semantics. Sometimes this process involves
reframing; sometimes it involves unlearning, sometimes it involves setting
and holding healthy frames.
Why all the killings? Typically people are living at the D-need level and
have distorted meanings so that they are lacking the sufficient coping
skills to meet their needs in an effective and healthy way. Within their
map of the world "killing" other human beings is a legitimate response to
their frustrations. Solution? Well, first and foremost help them meet
their legitimate needs in accurate ways. At least then they will not be
operating from the desperation of unfulfilled needs. Then, update their
data-base of information (their mental map) about all of the levels of their
needs and how to gratify them healthily.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
Dr. Hall's email:
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