2024 Week 43: Fundamental Human Needs

I lost 2 days (and 2 kgs) to another puking episode. This time it was triggered, probably, by a Sustenir kale salad overdose. I guess no-need-to-wash bagged salad is probably too good to be true. Anyway, 2 pukefests and multiple bloating/indigestion episodes in a month isn't great, so when I saw the GP I also asked for a specialist referral. I have mostly recovered now.

 

While not upchucking liquefied spoiled kale, I was preoccupied this week thinking about what to do with my life in 2025.

It is blindingly obvious that my current lifestyle, while theoretically "comfortable", is deeply unsatisfying. This issue has been rearing its head over the past weeks. I started feeling the dissatisfaction after finishing War and Peace, then I distracted myself with KL and coming up with random mini projects (karaoke and tattoos). And now, I'm back to feeling Blah again. What's worse, between the $72 GP bill and haphazard dining out, I feel Broke as well.

So yes, hungry not for food but for change. But I don't know what my next move should be. I feel called by several different paths:

1. Get A Job. I have been unemployed for so long that wage-slavery is now starting to look exotic and alluring. I walk around ogling employed people in their nice-looking clothes and I get feverish just picturing myself as one of them. "Knocking off" at 6pm! Taking paid sick leave! Buying buns from BreadTalk without thinking "I could buy a real meal with the money this costs"! Going on holidays! Performative competency from Mondays to Fridays! Getting a gym workout in during lunch! Saying the words "I have to get on a call"! Feeling secure and self-important!

2. Research Position. Most of the jobs I qualify for aren't anything new - editing, content, marketing whatever - and I am attracted to them as a matter of form rather than content, if that makes sense. A subset of potential jobs I'm looking at are (academic) research assistant roles. Those are different. They are interesting because (a) new and (b) chance of workplace populated with intellectual people. So these research jobs fulfil further needs (for novelty/learning and social interaction).

3. Writing Residency. In the past couple of months I put some effort into "serious writing" and the natural progression would be to apply for a creative nonfiction course and/or writing residency. I'm not altogether sure this is the direction I want to grow in - but if I do get a residency, I would use the funding to conduct more "ethnographic research" in in-work poverty. This ties back to my involvement in Be Co-op and a vague idea I have of pitching articles to the media. But again - not sure if this is an area of growth because it kind of feels like going backwards.

4. Move Pets Hideout. This is probably the most drastic change as it involves renting a commercial space in order to get AVS license. This is an expensive foray and there is no logical reason to do this , yet it sounds the most fun out of the options. The space could double up as a second hand bookstore, pet cafe, import business launchpad and/or our home.

Just for the sake of completeness I will also mention 5. Social Work Career Conversion Programme and 6. Yoga Teacher Training which were my original plans for 2024. I could go ahead and apply for the social work CCP since it opens in December - the course only starts next year in July so that's still a lot of time.

In trying to untangle my knotty emotions I have been thinking a lot about Manfred Max-Neef's matrix of fundamental human needs (introduced by Gerard last week during NVC).

I copied down the words that particularly jumped out at me: participation, dedication, receptivity, humour, responsibilities, duties, co-operate, associations, boldness, inventiveness, build, belonging, self-esteem, consistency, symbols, habits, historical memory, grow, commit, recognise oneself, places one belongs to, everyday settings, maturation stages, dissent, choose, risk, disobey. These point strongly towards the needs for "Participation" "Creation" "Identity" and "Freedom".

I can see there's no way those needs will be met with a stupid office job. On the other hand, I don't think any job or project can meet those needs fully. It's a case of "you get what you put in" I think. For example, I think I would have a higher chance of meeting my "Participation" needs if I simply doubled down on commitment to any one of my existing projects (Be Co-op seems a likely contender) THAN trying to look for the perfect community (e.g. my imagined workplace in academia).

"Creation" is always my strongest impulse and that's probably why I am gravitate towards the new, never-been-tried-before stuff rather than persistently work on the same thing. The flipside is that changing my commitments tends to destroy "Participation" and "Identity".

... of course I can just apply for all of the above and see what happens.

-

MON: puke :(

TUE: sleep, recover, dinner (beef broth noodles) at Diandin Leluk

WED: yoga, e-books, writing (Portrait of a Low Income Neighbourhood) at library@orchard

THU: collect Jill, lunch with dad, finish e-books (YAY!!), yoga

FRI: yoga, lunch with Jon at Genki Sushi (made me nauseous), NVC, book research, catch up w/ Marjie, dinner at KFC

SAT: Screen-Free Saturday (wonderful), home, RIOT drag show at Hard Rock Cafe

SUN: banh mi at TPY Lor 8, writing this post