How Are Needs Fulfilled in Nature? 10 - Soft White Underbelly Forums

How Are Needs Fulfilled in Nature? 10
7/15/25
Again, our rudimentary knowledge of motivation indicates us humans have a list of physical and psychology needs that we must strive to fulfill. We will strive to fulfill them through socially positive or socially negative and often self-distractive ways. First on the list are physical things needed to survive (water, air, food, shelter, clothing, good health, and sex). A second and others, involve abstract psychological feelings. The second is a sense of safety and security. The third is being loved and having a feeling of belonging to a group. The fourth involves being esteemed and respected by others. The fifth is a feeling by individuals that their natural capabilities are being realized.
To achieve Mark’s goal to create a better society there is a need to discuss the ways families go about fulfilling their needs, resulting in delivering their offspring into society as young adults that will be educated, skilled, tolerant of others, and motivated to become self-reliant.
We need not speculate how people living in caves fulfilled their needs. Current information can be found in the Foxfire books. They document what might be considered an Appalachian pattern of life. Although the people interviewed have few “modern” conveniences, they are able to meet their needs based on what they can make or do. They take great pride in self-reliance. Watch Mark’s interview with Dootsie from McKee, Kentucky (Appalachian Woman interview-Dootsie).
I can also relate how my Dad’s parents lived and how I lived during my early years. They were like the children seen on history documentaries walking beside a covered wagon when their parents moved into one of the “nations” that made up Indian Territory. As a teenager, my grandfather worked as a cowboy driving cattle to the stockyards in Amarillo, Texas. Before statehood in 1907, based on “nation” law he qualified to be a barber, a pharmacist, and an undertaker. Having little formal education, after statehood, he lost a large part of his work and income. After that he was a barber. My grandparents were not only able to survive but prosper. They were poor by our standards today, but together they were able to deliver into society three young adults that were educated enough, skilled, tolerant of others, and motivated to become self-reliant.
The key to their success was working as a husband-and-wife team. My grandmother probably created more wealth than my grandfather. He provided enough cash money to pay the mortgage on about an acre of land, buy the few items they could not produce, and kept fruit trees and bee hives. He and his brother built the house they lived in. My grandmother tended a large garden, canned vegetables and fruit for winter, kept chickens, hogs, and goats, made most of their clothes, and bartered and traded with neighbors for homemade products. My Dad and his brothers made $0.50 a day working on farms during harvest season.
Today, our nation is a mess. These ten messages have reviewed some of the rudimentary knowledge available about our social world. It should be obvious we need to learn a great deal more about how we might go about repositioning our path toward achieving a nation like none other has attempted. We are attempting to create a nation that provides opportunities for individuals to prosper without regard to race, ethnicity, and creed.
Some of our efforts to achieve this goal are working. Thousands of people from other nations are voting with their feet indicating support of our successes. But there are too many here who are not. Mark’s videos document many are suffering from the lack of good families and parenting. This challenge cannot be fixed one person at a time. We must learn more from overall social efforts that have worked and those that have not.
Like everyone else, I cannot provide specific answers; no one can because of our lack of knowledge. If someone could, we would not be in the mess we are in. But having worked as an organization change consultant for many years, I can provide thinking possibilities we might examine. A strong academic background is a good thing, but real learning is achieved through examining the results of the practical applications of ideas found in books and university classes. To stay in business, I had to create situations in which organizational members were able to improve.
Note: I ask for reader tolerance for my occasional suffering from Creative Spelling Syndrome.