Self-Actualisation

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that the central “dogma” of life is self-actualisation. But what is it really? Where did the term originate from? It was first coined by the German neurologist and psychiatrist Kurt Goldstein. Since then, there have been different streams of interpretations. The most popular being in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which mostly applies the concept to humans, but I’m more on the Goldstein camp, as I believe it extends to all organisms.

Goldstein viewed self-actualisation as the ultimate goal of every organism (plants, animals, humans, etc.), and that this goal, acted more like an innate drive for the organism to achieve its highest potential. In essence (emphasis mine),

self-actualisation = constant progress = survival = evolution

There’s gazillions of examples that validate this idea, and I’ll use two, one from the animal kingdom, and another from humans.

Animal Kingdom Link to heading

It’s another day in the savannah, and the lions are hungry. They scout around and identify their next prey. A herd of gazelles.

From the lion’s point of view self-actualisation looks like:

hunger -> hunt prey -> kill prey -> live another day -> survival -> reproduction

From the gazelle’s perspective:

fear of death -> flight -> live another day -> survival -> reproduction

Both end up striving for the same end: to achieve their highest potential, which as animals, is to survive and reproduce, given whatever circumstance they’re in.

This innate drive is so extreme it has led to cannibalism in so many species. Or to use a more relevant example, the evolution of respiratory viruses, since Covid-19 is all the rage these days. The official narrative is something like:

virus emerged from Wuhan, China -> international flights spread the thing globally -> vaccines were developed -> original strain started mutating to survive, aka evolved -> multiple variants of the original now exist

From the perspective of the virus, it fulfilled its highest potential: to spread, survive (vaccines), and evolve.

Humans Link to heading

Observe the “evolution” that an infant needs to undertake in order to become an adult. From learning how to read, writing, speech, interaction with others, development of skills, etc. But unlike animals, we have the unique privilege of operating on a higher level than our base instincts, and I think this is where Maslow’s stream of thought is particularly relevant. While evolution for a lion is limited to survival and reproduction, for a human being, it is something far greater and nuanced.

Now the question is, are you evolving? How so? Let me know in the comments.