I was reading this awesome text located here about Basic Human Needs. I am trying to draw parallels between that text and people in India as I know them.
The article says that there are 9 basic human needs. These are Security, Adventure, Freedom, Exchange, Power, Expansion, Acceptance, Community, Expression.
Following are my opinions and views on these 9.
Security – Most people I know tend to have this need. In fact if I can generalize things, most Indians would have a very high security needs.
For me, Security is not that big a deal.
Adventure – Again if I could generalize, most people would want to believe that they have high adventure needs, I dont think they really do have it.
And yes, I do have high adventure needs. And yes I have all positive aspects and a few negative aspects. Wow. This is accurate.
And I should not make friends with people with high needs of security.
Freedom – Again this is one of those things where people would want to believe that they have freedom but they dont really have it. They are cooking pre-cooked food.
As for me, I DO belong to the group of people who think they are free but they arent. We shall get into more details in subsequent posts.
Exchange – Yes, most people around me have high exchange needs. From things as mundane as recipes to things as involving as gossips, people do exchange things around me. But somehow we dont really make good employees. I think its because we are most bothered about “self” than the group.
Me, I think I have high exchange needs. I express them by participating in discussions etc. Actually, come to think of it, I have high recognition need rather than exchange need.
Power – People tend to think that they have high power needs but they lack initiative. Most of Indians around me tend to wait for orders. They love passing buck.
And I am also lazy. I dont think I have power needs but as I said, I have very high recognition need.
Expansion – I did not understand this one.
Acceptance – Very much. Most of the world around me has high acceptance needs. Probably can be attributed to the way we are raised in India. Every small achievement if praised and highlighted and as we grow up, we grow used to appreciation. We need acceptance for our efforts.
I also have high acceptance needs. I think acceptance and recognition go hand in hand.
Community – People say that Japanese have strong communities, I would say Indians have stronger communities. We might not be as loyal as Japanese but yes we tend to stick to our clans. We are still divided in Baniyas, Shudras, SCs, STs etc.
I personally want to break free of these communities but knowing myself it will be a difficult task.
Expression – I think I confused this one with exchange. I think people want to express themselves in India but because of way we are brought up (keep secrets within a family, women often dont have the opportunity to speak up etc), most of us dont express. Although when we start expressing, we can be very good at it.
I love the concept of expression. In fact one of the things that I want to do in life is to express myself. I have used images, text, videos in the past and I would love to experiment with other things.
Anyone wants to share their opinions?
