A 20th-century psychologist called Abraham Maslow developed a “hierarchy of needs” which he thought human beings had to navigate in order to feel fulfilled in their lives. He depicted it as a pyramid:
At the bottom are the bare necessities of physical and emotional being; then comes the tricky give-and-take of forming an individual identity that sits in harmony with a social one; and when all that is satisfied it’s possible to get to the very top, the “self-actualization” rung of the pyramid, where you can live a life according to your most cherished principles and desires. For that advantaged group of people who don’t have to fight for survival, of which I am one, our journey begins somewhere on the middle rungs, where we make decisions that bounce our needs for wealth, popularity, accomplishment and personal contentment against each other in the hope of shaping a set of circumstances for ourselves that will give us that fulfilment we crave.
And there I was too, toiling away in the middle, like the rest of the ambitious, over-achieving, degree-accumulating cohort of twenty-somethings I belonged to, until I was suddenly ballooned to the top by a horrible, life-terminating disease. Think about it: at the time of writing this, even though the “health” element on the lower physiological rung has been permanently compromised for me, I’m a young person living comfortably in one of the most advanced and beautiful cities in the world, with access to the best medical care; moreover, all my material needs are going to be supplied by other people for the rest of my days, and no-one expects me to make a living or prove my worth in society, or indeed do anything other than what I most like to, serenely, all for myself; which is a far cry from my erstwhile frenetic twenty-something existence (the word “frenetic, by the way, comes from phrenitis meaning “inflammation of the brain”, which is a fitting name for the ailment my generation lives with from day-to-day). My personal Maslovian pyramid, post-incurable cancer, looks like this:
This concept is familiar and people think about it all the time even without referring to Maslow- I’ve had conversations in the past with my friends in which we imagined what we’d do with our lives if we didn’t have to worry about money or prestige or social expectations, which was essentially a thought experiment set on top of his pyramid, plus I discovered while writing this that the work of the popular zen thinker Alan Watts also deals with these questions. It’s rare, though, for these thought experiments to tip over into reality, as has happened with me. It’s a most enviable unenviable situation to be in, shall we say.
So what’s the air like up here? Tranquil, for a start, now that I’m free from having to mould my life into a “successful” one. I no longer have to worry about advancing from one accomplishment to another with the same speed as my peers; I no longer feel envious or insecure when I see people who were surely just about, or even less deserving than I am (the cheek of them!) apparently having a much better time than me. The funny thing is, I thought I’d always known better than to judge how I lived by how others did, which is the sort of thing they warn you about from childhood (just work hard and become good at something you like; you’re your own best competition; etc. etc.) but despite myself still wandered into this trap sometime during my college years, and I feel incredibly silly about it. It could have been avoided. It should have been avoided.
It might be easy for me to say this now, gazing down from my sanctimonious cloud, floating high above the rest of you. I was fast-tracked here by cancer, after all-I may be suffused with a higher wisdom and an encompassing love for my fellow humans (remarkable how nothing disposes you more kindly towards people than the knowledge that they can no longer touch you or get in your way), but I will be the first to admit that I have done nothing to earn this enlightened state of being.
Still, looking back over my own life, even when I was mired in the muck and mess of ordinary striving, I can see that some choices I made were wrong, and I’m writing about it so I can set my hypothetical future on the right track. And maybe the view I sketch out from here proves to be illuminating for someone else. It can’t hurt, at least.
Oblomov's Sofa 