Back in high school and college, a series of teachers “introduced” me to Maslow’s hierarchy of psychological needs. The model was very popular in the 80’s, for good reason. The basic logic makes sense, since it is hard to pay attention to membership and belonging needs if you are hungry, homeless, and under assault. (Sorry for the gross oversimplification Abraham.)However, I always wanted to argue about the claim that the highest level, self-actualization, was so rare and difficult to accomplish that only a few people in history had ever attained it. Commonly, teachers and texts would suggest that only Jesus, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King Jr. were self-actualized individuals.
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I disagree. I think self-actualization is a state, not a level. I slip in and out of Maslow’s levels depending on the context. During a board meeting, if I get hungry I stop caring about whether the board likes me, and I wonder if I can snag some of their spare Chik-fil-a sandwiches. When I am full, rested, and secure, I often skip past the social levels of Abe’s pyramid and jump right to actualizing myself. It’s definitely a human thing and his may be an Asperger’s thing, but I’m not sure.
Here’s an example of a self-actualized epiphany (SEA). When I was 20, my brother died at sea and I inherited his set-net commercial fishing license, boat and gear. (Set-netting is a small-scale fishing method using open skiffs and small crews) That summer, I was a rookie captain with Meric Overman as my main crew and partner. During an opening in July, we decided to take a risk and set our nets at a distant location called Riley’s Wreck (Note to prospective captains—avoid being in places named for past shipwrecks.) Riley’s Wreck is along an exposed section of coastline that faces out across the Bering Strait to Siberia. To get there, Meric and I left Kotzebue and drove south around Cape Blossom.
From the time we passed the airport beacon, Meric and I were on our own with nothing to block the swells rolling across from a Siberian storm. It was intense, cold, and scary. As captain, I had the wheel of a 22-foot open skiff, driving twin outboards into the storm. I had reason to be scared. For one, my mom had lost her only other son just 5 months before—in a storm—at sea. Death and drowning was not abstract to me, and I was churning with my own grief and fear. For another, the waves were big, intense, and growing. But the best fishing was through the storm, around the cape, and down the coast. Mostly though, I was afraid because I was inexperienced, undersized, and completely in control. The waves were nasty, the wind was ripping, the summer sky was starting to dim as it does in late July in the arctic. Our little boat was outmatched, and our little crew was insignificant. And then it happened. Ghandi arrived.
Somewhere just North of Cape Blossom, we synced up with the storm. I started powering down the waves and easing off on the crest. We stopped jumping and pounding and started gliding. Working the throttle and the relaxing on the wheel, we started surfing the swells instead of powering through them. Meric felt it too. He stood with me and we knew without speaking that we could make it through. The next 30 minutes were the most pure expression of capability that I have ever felt. In the midst of real danger and adversity, we were up to the challenge. It was something like the “flow” that Csikszentmihalyi has described throughout his career.
We made it through and set our nets for a modest payday. I remember building a fire on the beach to dry out our gear, then spending a cold night in the storm until fishing the next day. I don’t know how many salmon we caught, or how much we made. What I do treasure is the memory that on that night, in that storm, I had what it takes. That is a touchstone that matters in a world that burdens Aspies with a sense of their abnormality and insufficiency.
I am posting this here at AspergersExpert because I appeal to all of us who are or love an Aspie to adopt a new concept of self-actualization. The tendency of spectrum dwellers to immerse in a challenge and focus intensely on an experience is not anti-social—as we are often told. Instead, it is an experience of self-actualization that is memorable and motivating. Once there, we want to go back. If you get there once, figure out the conditions and go back often. Find what you love and do a lot more of it.
For me, fishing commercially was a season of life that has ended. I haven’t set a net in 20 years. That doesn’t matter now. What matters is the memory and the recognition that I can go back to that metaphorical place when I need to.
A few years ago, I read a book by John Eldredge (Wild at Heart) that contained a quote by Howard Thurman.
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
If you have Asperger’s, don’t ask what makes you more like the world—more “normal.” Ask what takes you to your place of greatest self-actualization. Once you have that answer, do a lot more of that—because our world needs you.
Our. World. Needs. You.
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