the glitch of common needs

Need. Let me start with this word. A simple one’s consisted of four letters. Do we share the same definition and type to describe it? Some of you might thought that how the hack am I thinking of write this topic. Well one I can assure you, I am not trying to give a lecture or speech about needs. It something embodied us as a human being. Or you may be familiar with anecdote from Harold Kushner “ one of the basic need of every human being is the need to be loved, to have our wishes and feelings taken seriously, to be validate as people who matter”. So what make this as a problem? Do we actually know our basic needs? Or do we share the same understanding of what constitutes a common needs? There is a glitch in it (finger cross)

As a start, everyone has certain basic needs that they must meet in order to survive and thrive. Those needs are essential for physical and mental health (sounds familiar right) and playing a vital role in overall well-being. Do we have to explain it? Sure, you know better than me. Food, water, shelter, cloth and healthcare. Those are the five common needs that everyone shares. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychological that explains the five different levels of human needs. Starting from the bottom going upwards, the five needs are physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Physiological needs are the most basic of Maslow’s hierarchy, including air, food, drink, shelter, cloth, warmth, sleep and health. Maslow states that these basic physiological needs must be addressed before humans move on the next level of fulfillment. Once we fulfilled our basic needs, the next step is a need of safe and secure environment. Love and belongings are next, motivated by natural instinct of humans to interact. Esteem needs are motivated by a big hope to feel good about yourself. The highest level on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is self-actualization. It is a desire to accomplish all that we can and unleash our potential of ourselves.

Nowadays, efforts to meet basic needs experiences glitches or disruption. Income inequality between people’s impacts on basic needs such as healthcare, education and housing. It is economic disparities phenomenon. Environmental issues such as climate change and or natural disaster can disrupt the availability of resources like clean water and safer shelter. Systemic issues, discrimination and bias can create glitches in meeting basic needs for certain populations. Last but not least, nowadays event such as pandemic, expose weaknesses in healthcare systems and disrupt the availability of medical care.

Because human societies are complex systems, common factors may contribute to the decline of economic, environmental, demographic, social and cultural, and they may cascade as a historical examples where societies struggled to meet common needs and how they overcame or failed to address these challenges. This is the reason on why the study of societal collapse named collapsology are appeared. This would be an interesting discussion for the next article.

Today’s world, it’s easy for some of us to take our basic needs and granted. We barely don’t realize how fortunate we are. However, for many people around the world, these basic needs are not easily met. According to United Nations, over 820 millions people do not have enough to eat. Over 600 millions people don’t have access to safe drinking water. Over a billion people live in unproper housing and 400 million people lack access to essential health services. It’s always interesting to talking with numbers. These numbers are staggering and represent glitch in our world. It is the first glitch.

Meeting our common needs is not just a matter of humanity. It is a matter of justice. Everyone has their right to food, water, shelter, cloth and healthcare. One of our effort to make sure that everyone has access to basic needs is to fight for it through the representative. However, ensuring that these efforts are championed and become driving force for our representative is very biased. There is no such a guarantee and instrument to measure and charge them for this. The tendency leads to turning what is being fought for into a personal or at least certain group, communal needs. This the second glitch. How to ever on this phenomenon should become a joint efforts. By working together, we can fix the glitch and create a world where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

By educate ourselves about the issues, talking  each other, getting involved in community, and support business that are committed to social responsibility, we can make a difference. Finger cross.