Maslow

On a recommendation, I read Abraham Maslow's "Motivation and Personality." Roughly the first half of the book concerns his hierarchy of motivations, which I frankly found a little dull and ended up skipping; not that I think his hierarchy is necessarily invalid, merely that it is rather useless--I don't really know what to do with it.

I'm more of a fan of Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning," wherein the "Will to Meaning" (as opposed to Freud's "Will to pleasure" or Nietzsche's "Will to power") is man's deepest motivation--that even if one's deprived every physical need, as was him in Auschwitz, that one will still refuse to abandon a typhus patient even when an opportunity for escape arises, or an entire barrack will refuse to rat out a bread-thief to the SS, even if it means starvation for them all--because there is some deeper need, some more intrinsic motivation, that bypasses any artificial pyramid of physical or emotional needs. Again, it's not that Maslow's model isn't valid; just that I don't think it takes into account certain higher human behaviors.

But, the second half of "Motivation and Personality," concerning self-actualization, I did find much more intriguing; Maslow's thesis is that psychology expends far too much effort studying the sick, and not the healthy. (On a side note, a friend of mine studying psychology noted much the same thing--he said he once took stock of his classmates, and realized that each one was either a former drug addict, or was sexually abused, or etc; he himself was from a broken home! The lunatics appear to run the asylum in psychology; at least, they're who're most attracted to the field).

I'd always found the term "self-actualization" to be a rather pretentious, possibly-meaningless phrase, but Maslow's description of the self-actualized person as a psychologically healthy person did get me a little excited. I flatter myself that his is the model for the individual that I have unconsciously been striving to become all along, though I'll be the first to say I'm not there yet.

Briefly, according to Maslow, self-actualized individuals:

• Successfully resist enculturation
• Are problem-centric, not ego-centric
• Are unafraid of, nor disturbed by, and are even attracted to, the unknown
• Have a separate and personal, yet much stricter, moral code from the rest of society
• Can appear ruthless in how quickly they end relationships with people they perceive as dishonest, corrupt, etc
• Are good-natured and friendly with all, but maintain few true, close friendships
  
• Are at once more self-less (they genuinely care about the state of humanity) and more selfish (they know what they want and proceed to get it)
• Are both more sensual and more spiritual (they can find transcendence in the senses and bodily functions; the body does not disgust them)
• In sex, they are equally comfortable on top or bottom; they at once both enjoy sex more than others, yet do not crave it as desperately
  
• Do not tire of beautiful experiences (a sunrise or sunset will always be overwhelmingly beautiful to them)
• Resist false binaries
• Sincerely do not need or seek validation; but if they are honored or complimented, they still accept it graciously
• Sincerely do not let failures (or successes) define themselves or others
  
• Are very accommodating, but are not push-overs
• Are not perfect, but do not let their inevitable imperfections bother them
• Nor do they let others' imperfections drag them down, or affect their relationships
  
• Are good with children
• Enjoy mocking human foibles, but not specific individuals
• Can sometimes seem overly somber and serious at times
• Prefer to enter fields that help humanity as a whole
• Are capable of, and even enjoy, long solitude
• Are unusually quick, efficient judges of character; they know what sort of person they are dealing with almost immediately (Maslow heavily emphasizes this one)
• Are inherently unique without having to say so
  
• Would be embarrassed to be classified, or refer to themselves as ,"self-actualized"; they authentically detest bragging
  

Overall, according to Maslow, the self-actualized are simultaneously more fully human yet also more distinctly individual than the mass of humanity; no two self-actualized are the same (whereas so many psychologically shallow or sick people act are nigh indistinguishable). In many ways, they are the Nietzschean superman, save they prefer to help, not dominate, humanity.