The journey to the top of the pyramid starts by building a strong foundation.


Forward

This piece has been sitting in the back of my mind for some time - and reading that quote about his childhood was the catalyst. In this you'll read little known facts about Maslow's childhood, be introduced to some of my personal theories regarding Maslow and his hierarchy, and be shown why abiding by the hierarchy is an easy way to win at life.


About The Theorist

Abraham Harold Maslow was a Jewish Immigrant from Kiev, of the 1900's Russian Empire. What peaked my curiosity about this well-known, but misunderstood psychologist was this tid-bit about his childhood:

"As a young boy, Maslow believed physical strength to be the single most defining characteristic of a true male; hence, he exercised often and took up weight lifting in hopes of being transformed into a more muscular, tough-looking guy, however, he was unable to achieve this due to his humble-looking and chaste figure as well as his studiousness."

The Rabbit Hole Gets much deeper - Maslow's parents ridiculed him for his weak, skinny appearance, which combined with the 1930's emphasis on athleticism, militarism, and competitiveness, caused Maslow to take up body building.

Unfortunately for Maslow, no amount of physical exertion could transform his modest frame into an aggressive, hulking mass. His best efforts brought him only frustration, but try as he might, he could not shake the idea that true manhood was grounded in an animalistic physicality. In graduate school, he remarked that his "wish-fulfilment dreams and fantasies are not so much sexual or intellectual as physical."

In essence, Maslow believed Strength/Physicality is a physiological need for men, and a prerequisite to becoming an actualized man. I agree with this sentiment. Socrates also said, each man deserves to actualize the potential of their body.

Maslow believed it was more fruitful to study successful and sane people, rather than the mentally ill. As a positivist, he used his knowledge to compile a list of qualities that make a "self actualized person." In the work "Giving up maleness: Abraham Maslow, masculinity, and the boundaries of psychology" by Ian Nicholson, we explore Maslow's prolific career, and his goal of creating a softer version of psychology, without losing the masculine rigidness. He called it "Humanistic Psychology." Combined with biological essentialism, he worked to push the boundaries through research on Primate Dominance Hierarchies, female sexuality, and more. "He was convinced that psychology had be-come too masculine for its own good, yet he struggled to find a way to "soften"psychology without completely undermining its "rigorous" foundation. His work highlights the connection between masculinity and science and the difficulty of drawing psychology's boundaries without undermining its credibility."

^^Ironically, ^^softened ^^psychology ^^leads ^^to ^^Myers ^^Briggs ^^star ^^signs ^^and ^^the ^^likes, ^^while ^^Psychologists ^^have ^^endeavored ^^to ^^position ^^themselves ^^as ^^objective ^^observers ^^of ^^psychological ^^nature ^^while ^^portraying ^^their ^^rivals ^^as ^^self-interested ^^amateurs ^^mired ^^in ^^mysticism. ^^However, ^^that's ^^a ^^tangent....

Unfortunately again, toward the end of his life, Maslow felt himself trapped between freewheeling and daringly transgressive sense of humanistic potential and an equally strong desire for patriarchal order, discipline, and respectability. This is perhaps an unhappy end for one of American psychology's most inspiring figures. However, Maslow's struggle to come to terms with his masculinity should stand as a testament not to his personal weakness but rather to the power of gender assumptions in psychology and indeed in American professional life as a whole.

He died, unable to actualize his dreams.

Whether that was because he could never actualize his physicality is up for debate. I think so. Maybe even he knew it - he wouldn't be able to achieve his dreams without having a fit body - which is why the man died having a heart attack while jogging!

"What a man can be, he must be." - Is a quote from Maslow. It means that once a person visualizes themselves in a certain position, or at a certain standing with their life, they cannot ever "not" think about that, and will feel guilt, shame, anxiety for not reaching that visualization.

It's the game - ignorance is fine but once you know the game exists, you either play or lose.

Once you pop the red pill, you can never go back to being plugged in again.

Once you are made aware of a problem, you can never be ignorant of it again.

It is for that reason, when a man is aware of a need, he must solve that need, and when a man has a thought, or visualizes a desire for himself, he must become that visualization of himself! He must actualize his will onto the world and make his mark! Enforce his frame!

It's a never ending desire to reach that end state or something like it.


Exploring The Hierarchy Of Needs

The path to an actualized, fulfilled life is simple, and your body + subconscious scream at you to walk that path every day.

It boggles my mind how accurate this hierarchy is when it comes the my personal needs, and quite honestly, I've used this as a guide to living my life. It's whipped my focus into gear. Job, relationships, and life have all been steadily improving since I made myself aware of being wired to this hierarchy. It just makes sense to me!

In case you don't know what the hierarchy looks like, here's a picture.

By "getting your shit in order," and building a strong foundation for yourself, you can climb into the realm of being an actualized man.

You can't skip ahead on the journey to glory and greatness. Doing so makes you crumble from the ground up because of weak foundations. How can you expect to spin plates when you've died of starvation?

Also, I want to bring special attention to the fact that "sex" and "sexual intimacy" are 2 separate tiers - The main point about this is Orgasms are vital to a person's mental health. It isn't saying sex is vital for life, orgasms are, so people who advertise No-Fap are esentailly tellling you to deny your physiological needs in favor of some kind of ascended self actualization, without realzing their own irony - because by denying your physiological needs, you are denying your self actualization.

There's a reason why the "Fap On It" phenomena works - once you satisfy the basic physiological need, which is an orgasm, then you are able to focus on problems higher in the hierarchy.

Guys skip from their own personal security, and even some physiological needs, and try to just jump in to intimate relations with women and it just doesn't work like that, they have no foundation as a man and then they crumble. Don't even think about realizing their fullest dreams and potentials.

And the guys who jump straight to the top and try to be self actualized without doing anything else, skipping all the ground work, those guys end up wanna-be high iq memers who "debate over philosophy among other topics," which is really them acting as pawns for people who think for them. They dont have original ideas for themselves because they barely have any experiences, they just read the thoughts of another person and use those views as their own.

The hierarchy also has degrees of intensity built right into it-

Having a fit, strong, and able body is a physiological need as much as it is to bust a nut - but the intensity of degree varies depending on which tier you are in the hierarchy. A skinny fat is still at tier 1, and has to just get a fit and healthy body before he can "ascend." Someone who is self-actualizing because all lesser problems are dealt with, finances, relationships, etc, will now have the mental energy to define, and refine his needs.

Now suddenly, being fit isn't cutting it, now he wants to self actualize into a chiseled sculpture of 9% BF.

However, we all know you can't maintain 9%BF forever, and even if you could, no one is perfect. I believe for higher tier men, life becomes a shifting between solving tier 4 esteem and achievement issues, and enjoying self actualization. Those who reach the top hover between tiers 1&2, as 3,4,5 tier needs are all long dealt with.

Crawl, Walk, Run.

Becoming a multimillionaire, with a perfectly chiseled out physique swinging 3 plates and a #1 FWB, that's at the end man!

I think some men are too hard on themselves, they give themselves a hard time for not being at the end already which prevents them from starting, and building up from where they are now.

People don't understand they gotta walk down a path in life.

Or in our case, up a slanted ladder to the tippy top.

The JP pseudo-mensa crew and many folks all try to skip the line, jump ahead on the path. They can't do that. There will always be that lingering feeling in the back of your mind that something isn't right, and it's a subconscious scream that shouts in reminder that something was skipped!

People don't understand, life has problems, and will always be competition, and struggle.

They think jumping to the end will solve all their problems. Nooo... that never works, because life always has problems.

One must walk down the path to make the other steps easier to climb, man. Then you just grab on to the top, hold on as long as you can, let go, then down climb a bit, then go back up when ready again.

But they wont be in a position to hold on at all if they just jump from the start to the end, they'll be too weak.

Start with a strong foundation first. Then build it up to the top. Weak foundations crumble.

Not only that, but you don't wanna get stuck somewhere either!

MANY men get tripped up on the path to the top - the path to self actualization. They get stuck in a tier of the hierarchy, and they become specialized in it. Some guys get to tier 3 with intimate relationships, then spend all their time eating, getting money, and fucking. They don't wanna rank up in society they don't want to be everything they can and be a master of their lives. "What a man can be, he must be." Yet, these people can't think outside that "Must have pussy box," so they scheme on how to get more, forever. They grow wider and not taller. Don't do that!

Grow taller, not wider.

You need to be able to think creatively, independently, and outside the box to succeed. But even if you can't, or are too lazy to do that, you can still follow the steps given to you by the red pill and get the job done. Some guys get rich, then the pussy comes, then they think that's all they need, and grow horizontally, rather than vertically.

You might not ever be like Chad. You may not ever be great. But if you stick to the steps laid out and follow the guides, you will achieve success.

Here's a metaphor to illustrate -

Idiots act like they don't need sex to be self actualized.

Other idiots think all they need is sex to be self actualized.

Men who are self actualized enjoy the sex it takes to keep them at the top.

Higher men grow higher, because now that they have their pussy needs met, they realize there are other issues to address such as prestige and accomplishing goals, as well as becoming a master of what they do already.

Solving your physiological needs is a prerequisite to getting girls.

There's a REASON we tell guys to lift.

There's a REASON we tell guys to eat clean.

Guys who don't want to put in the work cry about not getting girls...

Pay them no respect, give them no regard. They are weak idiots. It is painfully easy to attract women in this lifetime. Even easier to have sex with them. I attract them by existing. All a guy needs is to be in fit, healthy physical shape, eat well, drink water right, have a source of some money, a place to stay, and boom thats all you need to fuck bitches man. The rest, that's extra. That's after you're fucking.

Use the Maslovian hierarchy as a checklist for your life.