Sunday, February 24, 2013

Maslow and the movie 'Hierankl'


'The three most important questions', begins the 2003 German film 'Hierankl', are: Are you having sex? Do you have a family? Are you intellectually stimulated? Scoring three yeses is paradise, two yeses is what you need to be happy, and one yes is what you need to survive. The film is bad but the questions, it asks are good.

Out of the three questions that stimulate most are the first and the third one.
ABRAHAM MASLOW
question is what do you mean by having sex? Maslow did talk about it 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation, at the bottom of the pyramid, the physiological needs are food, water, air, sex, etc . .  'Hierankl' talks about it in 2003 and still has validity to it. Maslow used the terms Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence. At level of love, which is third from the bottom, he talks about sexual intimacy. But Hierankl talks bout sex with or without family, which means, sex that he is talking about is at the physiological level of Maslow. But when we answer both yeses for first and second questions of Hierankl, it would mean, you are having sex and have a family as well and most likely, you are having sex with your partner.

Second question of Hierankl is again the level 3 question of Maslow's , i.e. belongingness and love, which means,  a settled and happy life with lots of life support, fun and love. 
Hirerankl's third question, "are you intellectually stimulated?" is about the 4th stage, i.e, the stage above Belonginingness and Love.

Hierankl did not as any further questions, they knew that next level question will fall into the level of Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence and Hierankl is not about people, "been there, done that" and now searching for the purpose of life!

I read somewhere, that, "Rule of thumb for the Western world: the things that we desire the most are the things that we need the least".
Tell me, if you desire money, power, Popularity and sex, why would you not need them or need them the least? 
Yes, perhaps not, when we have got all that and now feel, I do not need it for any such reason.

I read sometime back, "Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes. Oscar Wilde."
This really appealed to me the great way. Not sure why but it says, mistakes are something that teaches you the most! If yes, then why be afraid of mistakes. Commit it and have as much experience as you can. But who knows, what we commit as mistakes may not be mistakes for you may not be caught or face any consequence. Learning comes from facing the consequence. 

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