B11 Basic Principle

Which do you think is more likely?

You can cognitively control how you experience your needs with enough will power.

OR

Your needs tend to take over your cognitive processes to serve a list of urgent needs.

Anankelogy

Anankelogy recognizes how you experience many needs all the time. Most needs promptly resolve and pass from your awareness. Other needs fail to resolve then remain in your periphery for some time.

You may need water to drink, safety from some threat, to rest your weary feet, and to find a friend to listen to you all at the same time. Your life automatically puts the most urgent need at the top of the list of items calling for your attention.

Your weary feet can wait for rest if you must first get out of harm’s way from some threat. You can find a friend to share your concerns after you’ve quenched your thirst. Or perhaps you must first unload your cares before giving another thought about your encroaching dehydration.

You could be in a situation that puts your need for rest ahead of your need for safety if that risk remains remote. But when that threat suddenly confronts you, it can be easy to forget how tired your feet feels when you must quickly get up and run away.

Anankelogy recognizes you prioritize needs as they occur. Depending on how much your need resolves, you experience what anankelogy calls focal ranges.

1. At-rest. Fully resolving your need allows you to shift all of your focus elsewhere. You feel at peace, relative to this need.

2. Aware. Partially resolving a need keeps a little of your focus on your mildly reduced functioning. You feel a modest level of unfulfilled desire or modest level of persisting discomfort.

3. Alert. Barely resolving the need keeps most of your focus on your severely lowered functioning. You feel a distracting craving or a disruptive level of pain.

4. Alarm. Not being able to resolve the need at all keeps your fully focused on your compromised functioning. You obsess on what you must but can’t have. You’re consumed by the agony.

Life is good right now when few of your needs demand your primary attention right now. You feel thirsty, but gulping down some water instantly quenches your thirst. You require some solitude, and finding solace immediately frees up your attention.

Life is not so good when a list of unmet needs piles up. Whichever your body deems as most important for your functioning will naturally top the list. Your attention to freely breathe, for example, is far more important than finding some privacy.

Sometimes you have a need that adequately resolves, but then demands more attention to keep you functioning. For example, your need for help from others for the things you cannot provide for yourself can be sufficiently met until you slip into a crisis. You then instantly shift from being aware of your need for others to full alertthat you must quickly get help.

Most needs get evoked like this from some changing situation. Other needs simply get triggered as a rhythm in life. For example, feeling hungry at a meal time. Your habits can preclude a need being evoked, such as surrounding yourself with friends keeps you from ever feeling lonely.

Need-response

Think of what your life requires right now. You may feel a little thirsty but know that can wait. You wish your friend would call you, and feel you’ve waited long enough. You just remembered a bill you had to pay by the end of the day, and that need just took center stage.

Your life functions on a long list of physical and nonphysical stuff your life requires. Life is good when you can promptly resolve each one. But who could be so fortunate? Your life and my life tends to bog down on those items we can never quite fully satisfy. The less we can respond to a need, the more we end up reacting the resulting pain.

Reactive Problem

The less we can resolve a need, from problems beyond our control, the more our queued-up needs remain on the list. The pain builds up, as our body warns of the threat to our ability to fully function. We feel ourselves pulled more and more to react to the situation, for prompt relief.

Anankelogy recognizes this is not simply a cognitive experience. Limits to resolving needs often occur as “social facts” you can do little about. You must do something about the mounting pain, and no mere mental exercise can make it better. Resolving queued and evoked needs involves a social context. Our conventional thinking tends to expect more from individuals than what is honestly possible.

Responsive Solution

Anankelogy illuminates how we orient ourselves to our recurring needs. The more elusive the means to resolve a need, the more we tend to adjust to the limitation. Anankelogy cites at least three such orientations that speak to our queued and evoked needs.

1. Relational orientation (RO) – general-over-specific or specific-over-general. We either rely on generalizations that overlook relevant specifics of our needs but offers some relief, or we routinely get to the relevant specifics for resolving our needs. Queued and evoke needs resolve better when oriented toward specifics over generalizations.

2. Easement orientation (EO) – relieve-over-resolve or resolve-over-relieve. We either seek relief from our painful needs or regularly prefer to resolve such needs to remove their cause for pain. Queued and evoke needs resolve better when oriented toward resolving needs over relieving their pain.

3. Conflict orientation (CO) – guarded-over-open or open-over-guarded. We either stay defensive and guarded during a conflict, to avoid further hurt, or we habitually remain open to engage the unchosen needs on all sides of a conflict. Queued and evoke needs resolve better when staying open and engaging amidst conflicts.

Anankelogy recognizes a psychosocial orientation where you either prioritize self-needs over social needs or you prioritize social needs over self-needs. But unlike these other orientations, one side of this orientation does not more effectively resolve needs than the other. Instead of being vertical in quality like the other types, this “lateral” type of orientation recognizes the objective fact of prioritized needs.

Your queued self-needs and social needs intersect with these vertical types of orientation. The more specifics you address, endure the discomfort, and remain open despite conflict, the more your self-needs and social needs can fully resolve.

Because of limitations, often beyond your control, you either resolve your queued self-needs more than your queued social needs or you resolve your queued social needs more than your queued self-needs. This shapes your political outlook.

Resolving your public-facing self-needs more than your public-facing social needs predisposes you toward liberal or progressive stances. For example, your need for self-acceptance tends to be resolved more than your need for inclusion in society.

Resolving your public-facing social needs more than your public-facing self-needs predisposes you toward conservative or right-wing stances. For example, your need for family cohesion tends to be resolved more than your need for encouraged self-initiative.

Responsive depolarization seeks to address and resolve self-needs on par with social needs to take some of the sting out of such imbalance. So each time a self-need or social need clamors for your attention, you can more freely and fully resolve them, remove the discomfort, and reach more of your life’s full potential.

Responding to your needs

How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these:

• Needs typically fail to fully resolve because of being personally irresponsible.

• I believe the richer you are, the easier to freely and fully resolve each need.

• Perhaps mental illness stems from too many unresolved needs in one’s queued list.

• I imagine you can endure a list of unmet low priority needs without much risk to functionality.

Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below.