Feel Volume of Space

 "And I'm not entitled to nostalgia about all that lost wealth and glamour from a century ago. And I am not interested in 'thin'. I want to know what the relationship has been between this wooden object that I am rolling between my fingers - hard and tricky and Japanse - and where it has been. I want to be able to reach to the handle of the door and turn it and feel it open. I want to walk into each room where this object has lived, to feel the volume of space, to know what pictures were on the walls, how the light fell from the windows. And I want to know whose hands it has been in, and what they felt about it and thought about it - if they thought about it. I want to know what it has witnessed."

Edmund de Waal, 'The hare with amber eyes. A hidden inheritance' (2010), 15-16.

Eat Lunch With New Kid (rule #9)

 

P.S. This is a poem from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Analysis of this poem: here.

P.P.S. Rules for sons:

1. When shaking hands, grip firmly and look them in the eyes.
2. Don’t enter a pool by the stairs.
3. When entrusted with a secret, keep it.
4. Write down your dreams.
5. Return a borrowed car with a full tank of gas.
6. Never be afraid to ask out the best looking girl in the room.
7. If you need music on the beach, you’re missing the point.
8. Be confident and humble at the same time.
9. Eat lunch with the new kid.
10. Give credit. Take the blame.
11. After writing an angry email, read it carefully, sleep on it for a night and then delete it.
12. Never turn down a breath mint. (Someone is politely saying you need to brush your teeth.)
    

Ordinary Things

 

The Red 10

My presupposition is that Poetin and his comrades - for lack of a good word for this group, hereby baptized, 'The Red 10' - are primary and personal responsible for the war between Russia and Ukraine.

What's puzzling me is how their motivation to wage war fits into Maslow's Motivation Model. What's in it for them? Why? They have enough money. They have enough power. You would then assume that the deficiency needs are satisfied. Or do they still feel anxious and tense about their acquired (some will say: stolen) rights?  

Is it because money and power corrupts people? How to define being corrupt in this context? Is it because they want to be in the history books - make Russia Great again - as Peter the Great #2022? Isn't this Self Actualisation?

Some say, "Make love not war!" I guess for 'The Red 10' love is not the core of life. For them love, flowers, books and other art-stuff in general are items one buys at a shop. Deficiency needs.

For me personal the dimension - or level - of 'having (almost) absolute power at your disposal' is not accounted for in Maslow's pyramid. We can put '(corrupted) power' away as immaturity and some kind of psychological disorder, but if you do you do an injustice to the human species.

(Aside, what also is not accounted for is the dimension of culture. Read for culture also: storytelling and narratives.) 

P.S. Mark, Maslow himself never created the image of a pyramid to represent the hierarchy of needs. Some use another image (source): the image of (interfering) waves

 

Wondering why not use one of these images of representing Maslow's hierarchy of needs': DNA string, 11 dimensional cube, rooms in a house with windows, a cold and warm buffet diner,  and ... - there must be more.