These levels provide us with the basic quality level, below which we cannot find life even livable. Yet, today there are still millions of people at this primitive survival level. Something to think about.
Here they are:
Without air you survive only 3 minutes
Without water only 3 days,
and
Without food somewhere between 3 weeks to three months
Shelter is much
more elusive and sleep is more serious than most think
Most people need about
7.5 hrs of sleep per day
Some can last with less, as they take 'catnaps'
during the day.
Others need as much as 9 hrs, because of poor sleeping
habits.
No wonder that the old sages said that desire is the root of all
suffering.
Actually most desires are frivolous and certainly no real needs.
Let's explore that some more now.
Few of us would like to agree that we desire to suffer. Yet, it is clear that if we had no desires, there would be little or no suffering (excluding the suffering due to unfulfilled true needs ).
Whenever we desire something, and circumstances make it difficult or impossible to fulfil that desire, we get frustrated and suffer. That is called stress. This leads us to the first law of Stress Management:"Desiring the impossible gives high stress, desiring the possible low stress."
So we can control our level of stress and suffering by the desires we develop. Note that it is US that develop the desires, not the circumstances. Therefore, when two people meet the same circumstances one may suffer, while the other doesn't, because the first one may desire the impossible, while the second may be more realistic.
This also means that geniuses must suffer, because they are attempting to break through the barrier, to desire to accomplish what thusfar has been impossible . They suffer by their own choice, as we all do.
We are motivated to desire by the elusion or the delusion that the grass is
greener on the other side of our dream.
As the old sages say: By Greed, Fear,
Anger, Envy, and Ignorance.
We all want to improve the Quality of our Life, that means for most of
us:
More material wealth, more security, keeping up with the Joneses, and
whatever we 'think' will help us. Unfortunately, our thinking is not always
clear. What we think will improve our life, may turn out worse than we had it
before, because we did not 'think' through the implications of having our wish
fulfilled. The consequences of our actions usually come and hit us when we don't
expect it. Again, we suffer due to our own ignorance, and inability to plan
ahead and to foresee what will happen.
There is the famous Hog Cycle, that applies to many things we do, not only Hogs, but any market, even the stock market.
Now, you can fill in, for hogs, any item of your desire in the market
place.
You can also see it in traffic, sports, tv, fashion, and any other
fad.
We constantly are creating new hog cycles.
It seems to be a given that we should share and share alike, if we were ever to improve the quality of life, no matter how you define the quality of life. This is because we are dependent on each other, and if we don't share, we only feed greed, anger, and envy. We all have different resources, and to live together, we must share those resources. If we don't, the havenots will envy the haves and, if the stakes are high enough, war will ensue. This is not a threat but an observation.
Originally, wars were fought at the village level, then the city, then the county, then the province, then the country, and now continents. Fortunately, it seems that we are finally learning to share. Finally the GDP of under-developed countries is growing. Now, finally, we may call them developing countries. This may slow the developed countries down, but that is not a bad thing! At least it means that those living at the subsistance level have a chance to improve their quality of life
In Ontario, we just gone through an interesting experience, when the previous Government under pressure to cut spending proposed a 'Social Contract'. This contract was to prevent layoffs by cutting work of all workers by 5-10%, by having them take 'Ray Days', i.e. Compulsory time off without pay.
Unexpectedly, it was the Labour Unions who objected. The Government then forced the 'Social Contract' at the 5% level, but was voted out by the Unions at the next election.
The new Government was more ruthless and decided to layoff some 20,000 people (the exact figure is still unknown). And again the unions screamed, but ended up accepting the layoffs, after they had their layoff allowance boosted in negotiations.
This now will create more havenots, while the haves will get richer. I cannot see that contributing to the overall quality of life, but only to the quality of life of some.
It is your guess what the Labour Union's objectives are.
In this age of the 'gimme, gimme' society, I am not holding my breath to find out how many others are willing to share their job.
The world population is still growing at an alarming rate, only being contained by wars and famines. I cannot get away from the notion that population growth is at the root of much serious suffering today. And much of it is at the elementary needs level.
Unless we learn to control our own explosion, we are bound to suffer from our own expansion drift. Our quality of life depends on how well we control the population growth in the rest of the world.
Population growth is not a given, it is created by us.
The frightening thing is that the Natural Resources Base is slowly disintegrating as our resources are being exhausted and polluted, while farmers and fishermen are going broke. To fix that takes more than redistribution of wealth and reduction in population growth, it takes a complete holistic and ecological approach to the economy.
It is called Ecological Economy. Is there anyone ready to tackle that? That takes more than world peace, world socialism, or world economy. For now, world economy has only helped it get worse in some areas, while trying to develop others.
We got a long way to go baby!