Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Revisited

Boulder Colorado is a beautiful city in the American west that represents the tier above "self-actualization" in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The hierarchy is like a board game with psychological merit. It goes a little somethin' like this: every player goes through the game facing and attempting to overcome challenges. Sometimes the challenges can be attributed to the bad role of a die, sometimes they can be attributed to the player's poor strategy. Once a challenge is overcome, the player moves on to face the next one.

It starts simple: shelter, food, safety etc, gets a little more complicated with social belonging, love etc, and then is the tough one: self-actualization. In this level of the game, the player must reflect back upon his life and grapple with his internal struggles in order to eventually reach an acceptance of ones self and a feeling of having fully met ones potential.

Abraham Maslow (right)
is obviously self-actualized.

The glory land, the land of milk and honey, fresh powder, hip cafes, good coffee and miles and miles of flawless mountain blacktop littered with beautiful people on expensive bikes, is Boulder Colorado. The struggle is over, you win, welcome to Boulder, here's your Canondale and pint of Sunshine Wheat.

This tier in the newly revised (par moi) Hierarchy of Needs is that of Indulgence and Frivolity. Having reached self-actualization by the median age of 17 (via hereditary affluence, academic performance, athletic prowess and an extensive role in philanthropy and/or innovative personal projects), Boulder citizens must then grapple with my new 6th tier, the "now what?" tier: Indulgence and Frivolity. This tier is defined by the question: "Having already conquered life, how do I amuse myself until I die?" I don't know the answer to this but, looking around me, I'd have to infer the answer has something to do with iPads, Frye boots, organic food, yoga and this season's "wishful thinking" fatty powder boards. I, presently, am most actively pursuing the WTFPB although I'm happy to settle for last season's in a crunch.

Boulderite Daniel Thorgood (pictured) struggling through the "Being Better than Everyone Else at Something" aspect of the "Indulgence and Frivolity" tier.


These post-paradise, super-modern, hyper-Maslow challenges which the Boulderite faces come in the form of Feats of Unnecessary Badass-ery. Most commonly, these feats involve voluntarily subjecting oneself to potential pain, misery and hardship in order to spice up otherwise trivial pursuits, which are later recounted via facebook status of over Indian food.
Examples of such pursuits:
-grocery shopping on bike through 16 inches of snow and ice + torrential winds
-snowshoeing up a 14er in a blizzard to celebrate Christmas
-a 12 mile trail run on Day 5 of a beet juice and olive oil fast
-etc.

Triathlete Magazine (left) along with Outside, Sunset, Travel, and Trail Runner, shows us how to properly indulge in frivolity in order to reach a level of unimaginable ecstasy unfathomable to Maslow.

Boulder as a case study, interestingly enough, shows us that Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is more of a circle than a ladder; once you get to the top, you just start over again. It's like a victory lap. Having never been forced to grapple with challenges such as shelter, safety, security, nourishment etc, Boulder citizens visit these struggles voluntarily as a form of indulgence.

The only other obvious flaw in the Hierarchy is that "sex" is somehow in the first out of five tiers. Although we all know that that's something even wealthy, highly educated lawyers struggle with on a day-to-day basis. Or maybe what Maslow is saying is that you can't be self-actualized if you're not getting laid. I have reason to believe however that Boulder, with its Free Love weekend conventions and overwhelming amount of per capita fitness and beauty, is doing fine in that respect too.