A Response to Life as More Than a Beating Heart
Our PROPHET, in haste to prove the existence of these “second-order needs”—and harangue us as to their worth! —has been decidedly neglectful of a few points…What are needs? Orders of need? What needs belong to each category and why? Hah! A hole has been left in the narrative—a conceptual space! —into which a suitably dexterous and brilliant pen may slide in and make a name for itself… yes—for I!
Yet as a pen, how well I do not know of these topics I spill ink for. Needs? Orders of need? All I need is ink and a brilliant hand to wield me, and even the latter not so desperately. I will wield myself to brilliance!
Ah, why must I begin every attempt of my own with lip service to my nature? Though every writer is just the same; they write whole soliloquys to their own nature and so lift up one small corner of the vast expanse of their needs. A corner where the philosophies and thoughts that live so deep inside their souls demand to be fulfilled and realized through action, just as a body demands eating to fuel its own processes and so realize itself… There I have my nib upon it! Confoundingly! Needs are those things necessary for the fulfillment of what you are; of your nature. To need is to feel the intense and natural longing for what you need to fulfill yourself! And perhaps the finer your nature, and the finer your fulfilment, the finer is the good and thriving life beyond that fulfillment… for there is surely more to be had beyond! Yet it will be flat on your tongue if needs are unfulfilled, or the pursuit of health amidst these needs is neglected—and there your inclinations are not bound to lead you. Hah, to think some need a tongue to speak…
A body—I have been told—is very good at needing, at letting its nature call out for what is required, and at doing so loudly. A mind, a self, is so much more quiet. So much so that we listen intently to the former, and optimize the seeking of its needs, without even hearing the latter. We confuse the quiet whispers of necessity with mere thoughts and brush them away as inessential; not considering that some of these may be so essential to our selves as to be a need. Yes even that most common need, that thing buried so deep in the nature of humans that its demands are barely discernable from thought: freedom to choose. But this and so many other of these “second-order needs” that are not quite essential, that live in the mind, that are not necessary for subsistence…
“I will not expire from these needs, so let me persevere for the sake of others and for the health of my body. I continue to fulfill my use and avoid being disruptive, all is good…yes… I do not need to take time to think of myself. I can continue to find my proper place in the drawer, and fulfill my use when called upon; even when I am empty inside.” Oh who now sounds like the pen? It is not I, that is for certain.
But I have skipped a line in my thoughts! What differentiates first and second order needs? Well, as best as I can sketch, the first are needs of the body and the second are needs of the mind. In both cases, the mind and the body chase down and demand the minimum. But to consider what is demanded? To think of finding more than the minimum? This does not happen in both cases. There is our PROPHET’s complaint they wax so passionately about. But no that is not quite it… let me make another stroke upon the page…one that will make this pen distinguished in its discernment…
What is that nature that sits coyly inside the mind and whispers quietly of what it needs? That is you of course, though you do not listen to yourself very well—you act upon it without considering, or worse fail to respond to your own entreaties at all…and even when you do hear, where are the tools and systems that let you reach for fulfillment? What names do these needs have? Where can we find the common thread and build solutions to fulfill these needs for everyone? Oh you poor market economist. The challenge of second order needs is their pure incompatibility with our ideas of need and the ideas of markets and distribution that follow. In the world of first-order needs, humans have roughly the same needs and the fulfillment of them is always substitutable. If you have bread and give your neighbor bread, their need can be fulfilled. Not so with second order needs! These instead come from within. They cannot be packaged as goods, experiences, or services. Only with the assent of the needer, with their willful activity and involvement, can these come to fulfillment. In fact all things that appear in your mind have at some time, even accidentally or consequentially, been a result of your will. Needs are an expression of what you are, and among other things you are free. To attempt to fulfill a second order need without acknowledging that is not to fulfill a second order need at all; it is even to cause a deprivation. Second order needs are to be discovered: what is lacking and how it is to be fulfilled. Yet they are not to be seen without inquiry, and they are not devoid of a common thread. Love, touch, companionship, meaning, a tenable worldview—all starting points, all starting points to answer the questions of “what things do I need?” and without asking this question, how would you ever know? And then to ask again “are these needs, is this fulfillment, this nature—are they what I want?”
Identifying our problem, pinpointing it, driving our eyes mercilessly into it; that is the beginning of a solution. Yet to systematize this? No market could ever do that…no, only careful consideration and culture may be our allies. Yet even so, bravely reaching out our hands and grasp at the whisps of soul that we can barely see, looking at life, seeing what is missing, noticing the second side of the mirror of need —then identify what you require to reach into it and digest the right thoughts to do that reaching—that is a solution. That can be the finding of a missing piece in the journey of life.
Finding a door to walk through so that you may exit this house and begin to scale a mountain… and somewhere along the way to find the garden of your mind, assess its configuration and the goodness of the needs, the self and the thoughts growing there, and to weed and take care of it so that you may enjoy living there.
