FootprintsintheWind.com

Our protection is in being friendly, open with people, not closed, ignoring them. On a dark city street we share a bus stop wind shelter with young people dressed in their disaffected way: if we treat them as objects, things in our way, “they” will have little desire to help us should we need help. Indeed, if we become real persons to these real persons, and if they had intended us harm, we are making it harder for them to do their wrongs, easier to be kind to us. Safety in vulnerability!

:- Doug.

Do we give up on people who have low grumbles? Or do we talk to them about the places in their lives where they have high grumbles? Is it possible, even likely, that we will get to the higher if we start where they are? If we talk about times when they were at their best, when they were hurting, when someone was kind to them—and if we share our real selves—is it not likely that the conversation will flow to the richness we seek? Even if it is not the subject we seek, we in flexibility can admit that we received copiously.

:- Doug.

Maslow says that our grumbles tell us where we are on the hierarchy of needs—people who are at lower grumbles still have lower needs to be met. He almost categorizes them only in two levels: low and high grumbles. This certainly is in line with what I have noticed—he says that people with lower needs cannot even see the higher needs—and this is precisely the eyes-glaze-over I have been getting when talking with 30-something people about community work—they are so focused on the needs of their children and making a living (so was I at that stage) they cannot see the “higher grumbles.” Nor could I at that age—I remember not being able to understand the chapters in books which went into environmental issues. Usually these chapters were at the end, so I had gotten my meat out of the book. Now I wonder if this was a recognition—whether conscious or otherwise—by the authors that the higher needs come later?

:- Doug.

Conversation is the growing tip of humankind. How green and strong is it?

:- Doug.

About what did you complain last? About what do you complain most? Where do these fall in the hierarchy of needs?

Grumbles—interesting flag! Something for which to listen!

:- Doug.