In Which I Ramble In A Very Self-Actualized Manner

I've been blogging for over a year now, and this blog has metamorphosed into something wholly unexpected.

I didn't intend for it to be an outlet or a catharsis or a cheap alternative to therapy, but it has been. I wasn't supposed to be a means for reclaiming my voice or my identity, but it is. And I never thought it would be the impetus to finally become a "real" writer, but its given me the courage and the confidence to do just that.

I remember those early days of blogging and how, to my surprise, it became a very positive, edifying and empowering thing in my life.

I took a look back at some of my earliest entries today and laughed. My inaugural post was tongue in cheek jab at blogs, bloggers and blogging. If I had known then that I would fall prey to the very thing that I was poking fun of, it would have been a very delicious irony indeed.

Recently Her Bad Mother posted a very thought provoking missive about Bloggers and narcissism. I think I believed then that Bloggers really are the epitome of self-involvment and self-importance. I think I believed that narcissism defined blogging and vice versa. And I said so.

I have had cause to reconsider, obviously. And I've felt compelled to examine just why we Bloggers blog, or more specifically, why writers write.

I don't think it's narcissism.

Abraham Maslow addressed the compulsion for self-examination and understanding in his theory regarding the human Hierarchy of Needs. Put in the simplest terms, he believed that needs are motivating. Needs that are not met, or are only partially met continue to motivate.

Guess what is at the very top of that Heirarchy of Needs?



Self-Actualization. This is a need that does not need to be fulfilled in order to live or maintain mental stability, but one which undoubtedly provides the most stimulus for personal growth and a kind of self-awareness that provides balance and inner peace.

Maslow asserted that one cannot achieve self-actualization if lower needs are unmet, as one cannot fully devote oneself to realizing their inherent potential. For this reason he estimated that only about 2% of the world's population was truly self-actualized.

But that was then, and this is now.

Self-Actualization as a psychological construct is far too complex for me to do justice with my layman's interpretation. Basically, self-actualization is quantified by 12 principles. If you want to read about them, you can find a pretty comprehensive but straightforward explanation here.

But what strikes me as a particularly relevant parallel between bloggers and self-actualization are these two observations from Maslow regarding a group of individuals he believed to be self-actualized given the standards he set forth.

1. They had a sense of humility and respect towards others -- something Maslow also called democratic values -- meaning that they were open to ethnic and individual variety, even treasuring it. They had a quality Maslow called human kinship or Gemeinschaftsgefühl -- social interest, compassion, humanity. And this was accompanied by a strong ethics, which was spiritual but seldom conventionally religious in nature

2. And these people had a certain freshness of appreciation, an ability to see things, even ordinary things, with wonder. Along with this comes their ability to be creative, inventive, and original. And, finally, these people tended to have more peak experiences than the average person. A peak experience is one that takes you out of yourself, that makes you feel very tiny, or very large, to some extent one with life or nature or God. It gives you a feeling of being a part of the infinite and the eternal. These experiences tend to leave their mark on a person, change them for the better, and many people actively seek them out. They are also called mystical experiences, and are an important part of many religious and philosophical traditions.

In addition, there is a list of meta-needs that tend to define self-actualization:

Truth, rather than dishonesty.
Goodness, rather than evil.
Beauty, not ugliness or vulgarity.
Unity, wholeness, and transcendence of opposites, not arbitrariness or forced choices.
Aliveness, not deadness or the mechanization of life.
Uniqueness, not bland uniformity.
Perfection and necessity, not sloppiness, inconsistency, or accident.
Completion, rather than incompleteness.
Justice and order, not injustice and lawlessness.
Simplicity, not unnecessary complexity.
Richness, not environmental impoverishment.
Effortlessness, not strain.
Playfulness, not grim, humorless, drudgery.
Self-sufficiency, not dependency.
Meaningfulness, rather than senselessness.

See what I'm saying here??

Now, I'm not saying that bloggers are so enlightened as to be fully self-actualized. But I am saying that our need to to examine, to question and to elucidate stems from our pursuit of self-actualization.

It isn't a love of self which drives us, it the need to know who we are and why we are. It is a big existential question mark that compels us.

That is why bloggers blog. Why painters paint. Why musicians compose. Why clergymen preach. Why politicians pontificate.

So. I don't think we are narcissists one and all. I think we just want find ourselves, to know ourselves and then to love ourselves just a little.


"Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth."
~Abraham Maslow