the need........

Need is so much a part of us, often we are not happy because we aren’t needed enough, or because need itself binds us, stifles us, and constricts our freedom. But at the same time if one delves a little deeper into the realms of our respective minds one finds that there is a certain logic behind the presence of “need” to be needed.

Sometimes its unfulfilled desires manifesting itself into our current lives, sometimes feelings that have never had an outlet.
Or sometimes the simple desire to cling onto the physical presence of relationships. Often I’ve asked why does a child need its parents?
Its dependence on its mother during its infancy often stems from its sense of insecurity and fear of the unknown, a fear that initially isn’t there, for the child is born it fears nothing, because it knows not what is fear and what is the stimulant or causant for that matter.

This fear is often fed to young minds by their parents or those who look after them so that they can feed their sense of importance and indispensability in their lives. Or simply because they wish to protect their infant from any possible threat.


However as adults we forget that children do grow up and as they pass through different stages then fears and dependence drop away along the wayside. Its similar to the way a snake sloughs its skin. And the individual emerges as a new personality. However that dependency takes another form. What we need to do and fail to do so most often is to make the child self-reliant right from the start, and if its security concerns, shadow it so that we can protect it not stifle it. However I’m also a great supporter of the naturalistic method of teaching. Let the child learn through its own mistakes. The lessons learnt in this case are life long permanent learning.

Now looking at this child-he is confused by this feeling of being set adrift without a mainstay in life. Some of us latch onto careers, money, social life or family to ameliorate this inexplicable feeling of being incomplete. Also by this time the sexual needs of an individual have kick started the need to seek a partner who will be most suitable socially and personally to the persons ‘needs’. As young adults we can’t go back to the relative safety of parental love. The core remains the same though the form has changed.

To discuss this new kind of need, I’d say its to become central to someone’s universe and later develops into the need to tie that someone down with stronger chords like those of marriage, family children etc.in short the most dreaded word and yet the simplest of them all COMMITMENT. Hence on the flip side one could also say the need to be needed is also the basis of the need to procreate.

How vain and arrogant man can be, to think that he could actually be the center of someone’s universe. It is possible to love and be loved by someone without the interference of this need to be needed. Yes there are some people who are so lucky. And their presence in this world is the hope for cynical idealists like me.

Millions of rhetorical thoughts circle around in my mind and out of all the chaos I make sense. Simply that all this is a complication of our creation. In reality things are a lot simpler than this. If only we would stop hiding and stop pretending. There is a certain beauty in vulnerability as well. To love live and express both with integrity shows the beauty of our souls. if we do so the need for artifice dies a natural death and with it the need to be needed simply because we stop refuting the existence of this need. So it isn’t so bad to let the world know that you need to be needed…. no shame in it …no weakness in it…