Women’s Internal Creative Struggle
I like to challenge myself to think about collaboration, communication, and creation in unusual ways. Many of my insights are gained from Hackathons. I want to share an idea about our conflicting nature between being adventurers that seek meaning in unconventional and usual ways and beings that also favour safety, predictability and security.
The two are conflicting outcomes. This has developed as an interest because I watch teams during Hackathons work together to “make life better” for some community. That usually means creating tools that minimise effort while maximising outcome. Humanity has been doing this forever. This is one of the reasons communities has formed. We’re stronger together because the effort is distributed but as we offset effort into the tools we create to disrupt the meaning we find in the effort we once
There’s real value in the pursuit of our basic needs such as food, shelter and reproduction that’s hard to describe. We gain a sense of pride in actually working towards providing these things for other-selves and the ones we love. This has a positive domino effect on our confidence, self-identity and our community relationships.
Yet, a part of us wants to also do more than just provide our basic needs. We want to find additional meaning, understanding, freedom and self-expression. This demands us reduce the time and energy we spend pursuing our basic needs. I think this is the internal conflict of women.
As we seek self-actualization and esteem, we venture into uncomfortable and unpredictable territory that can directly disrupt the comfort and fulfillment of our basic needs.
Many entrepreneurs I find at Hackathons are willing to go without food, shelter, clothing and other basic needs for the future promise of self-actualisation and we reinforce this behaviour in society because we almost ritualise sacrifice. I’m curious what long-term effect does this have on communities and individuals.
I'm sure as with many things, the balance between the two is what keeps either one from being our prison.
The corporate world can be so intense many cannot pursue their “true passions” that help them find meaning. They are sacrificing Women’s higher nature in order to provide for their family. While this brings fulfillment it also creates a gaping hole for more.
This loosely related to some of my idea’s on the over-automation of society…
We’re could potentially be over-engineering society. We’re not operating like skilled craftswomen, it’s like we’re a slave to productivity. Building to automate, automate, automate.
I know this is all over the place. My digital garden is more like a digital jungle. I think that’s the power of #buildinpublic culture. It’s ok to have unfinished, messy and confusing ideas and share them publicly.
Lastly, a thought on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs illustrated:
This is the closest I could get to the thought for now, although physiological needs would be indirectly proportional to self-actualization needs. “Indirectly proportional” probably is not the right word because how do you objectively measure motivations. Note to self: it could be interesting to try to map motivations like a network…
It reminds me of space. It’s like motivations are planets and factors like shelter, respect, clothing, status, intimacy, meaning etc. are astroids.
Do some of my thoughts and ideas inspire any interesting thoughts? Are the authors that you suggest I should read? Are there any gaps in my thinking that bug you? Let me know your thoughts!