Changing needs

Being human started in Savanna 20 thousand decades ago. It was the time he scavenged for food to fill his 2-litre stomach and fought the wild beings for current days tourist spots, the caves. He must have got a bit cozy and realized he infact needed a covering over his body from external environment. Yes, those are the physiological and safety needs namely food, shelter and clothing at the bottom of the Maslow’s pyramid. Turn back to 2008, being human we still require all these 3 basic needs to be met for survival. But do these three alone stand good? Amidst all this power shortages, imagine, do you really think an urban or even a semi urban human can manage a nights sleep without power? Power might not be an absolute necessity for survival per se but a physiological need at the bottom of pyramid very close to being an absolute necessity. Say suppose you still managed a night out with mosquito, next day morning it’s the locomotive, which facilitates the transport to your office, market, mall, client or to a vacation. Since remaining within the shelter does not guarantee food, oil or the fuel for locomotive has become the next close absolute necessity. Say suppose the pirates of the Arabian have taken hostage of an oil tanker and petrol stations decided to tie knots to their empty drums front of their shops inspite of oil bonds issued by government. So, sitting back home, the PC or mobile becomes a near absolute necessity. Can we even afford to imagine a day without a mobile or PC at work? Nearly impossible. So we can say that power, oil, and silica have slowly creeped into human lives so much so to call these as developing absolute necessity (DAN) as compared to developed necessity of food, shelter and clothing.

This is very easy to relate DAN to macro economic situation prevailing in today’s world. Have we not reached the climax (who knows it is or not?) of the petro dollar issue on oil, or did we not witness the civil nuclear deal process or are we not witness to the Silicon Valley revolution or the telecom revolution? Its all been happening around with visionaries around the globe keeping a close watch on basic human needs on a macroeconomic viewpoint. Nevertheless, ‘being human’, for Maslow and me remains at the top of the pyramid – the self-actualization.