Self Actualization

Civilization have moved forward insofar that we have moved beyond rudimentary drawings to sophisticated communication systems with nuances and multi-layered meanings. It is to say that we have gone beyond showing factually an event- like a hunt- to one where we are able to make an argument which goes beyond just the phenomenon itself.

Hence there is this idea of high and low culture. High culture is when a long period of practiced learning is required to absorb the various details of a particular discipline which is highly valued by a society due to it's attention towards a higher or "better" ideal of man. This means that a man becomes "better" because he/she has acquired a quality which qualifies him/her beyond a basic instincts which defines one has simply for survival. This is not to say that this person is not a "person" insofar that he is more "sophisticated" in his understandings and which food, water and other basic necessities are not necessary to the person. Everyone knows about the Maslow's hierarchy of needs- that is a very basic idea, the highest level of "self-actualization" is so abstract that it can mean something and nothing at all.

You see no one and I mean no one likes to be debased. This means that a debasement is only because one sees "self-actualization" as a dream and unattainable- which makes the direction towards hedonism and debauchery and antithesis to the idea of "self-actualization". It is simply rejecting the idea of a "better" ideal for the "worse" due to realities of life. It's rejection is in itself is an acknowledgement and acceptance of a better ideal by which the spirit or the flesh is not willing. Hence since we cannot fulfil our dream, we simply lived drunk. This means that better to experience infantile desires than to suffer the agony of disappointing the super ego. The ego simply justify this by rationalizing that the realities is improbable and hence better to consume now than to gratify later.

The ideal is quite a straight forward idea, which means that everyone wants to be a "better" or "positive" man in a manner he/she deemed is meaningful to him/her. The descend to the idea of the infantile desire is s not that he/she has no ambition- it is simply that he/she does not feel good enough for it and hence the ideal is like the "devil" or shadow instead, which continually haunts the  backwaters of his/her consciousness, telling him/her is not good enough.

Hence since the "devil" is a strict and no nonsense disciplinarian with no regard for human emotions or suffering, enjoyment and gratification than becomes the angel- which provides the honey by which the super ego can never satisfy. And therefore, "sins" or "hedonistic" behaviour are rationalized simply as gratifying or scratching that itch that never goes away. But it will never go away simply because we all have a basic level beyond survival- and the point is to attain an ideal and not to turn the ideal into a "devil".

Hence you see as I walk through suburban malls, trains and buses, you will notice the downcast look on everyone by which their only redemption in life appears to be the crutch that they rely on when the super-ego haunts them. The lower the debasement, the larger shadow of the looming super ego. That is when one descends into "low" culture thinking that high culture is beyond them.

I was watching a documentary about this convict turned gardener. He described his landscaping job as an art by which he creates colours and meaning into life. If a convict which enter the jails 4-5 times can speak like that, what is art to the common person. This is "high" culture to him, because it took him skill and dedication to sculpture a garden to it's own image and not to the destroy it like what he used to do.

There is no such thing as "high" and "low" culture. This dichotomy only exists in the head of the large super-ego looming over the consciousness of the person. He/she must have felt that let down a particular ideal and felt never good enough to ascend to a level of "high" culture or "self-actualization". That is to find meaning in your life.

Art is for everyone, if it is for select group of people, it will not be called art. What the guy above did was art. He was recreating things in it's own image and not to reject the ideal and accept that life is only as good as the next smoke, drink or whatever poison that floats your boat.