SOE Basic Concepts -- The Society of Enoch

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Date Posted: 10:54:50 08/09/05 Tue
Author: Mark
Subject: SOE Basic Concepts

Creating a new society is a complex process. Here are a few basic ideas on which to build -

Every action we take in life is an effort to meet a specific need. That need may be a physical one; for food and drink, protection from a perceived threat of harm,and so on. It is my belief, however, that after the need to breate our greatest need, the need that drives the overwhelming majority of our behavior is the need for human interaction. This need is quite complex and involves many aspects.

I break the human interaction needs down like this -

1. Attention
Before we can satisfy any other need involving other people we must first capture and hold their attention. Infants get attention initially by crying. As a person grows they develop other methods of gaining attention. A child not provided with a positive method of getting attention will develop negative methods. The methods we learn in our youth, whether positive or negative, very effective or marginally so, we continue to use throughout our lives.

2. Acceptance
Once someone we have been seeking the attention of has given us a signal that their personal focus, their conscious mind, is directed towards us, the next step is to achieve a level of acceptance. The level of acceptance we seek varies depending on what our actual need is at the moment. If we simply have a question we need answered that requires a different level of acceptance than if we need affection.

3. Approval
When we have someone's attention and acceptance the next step, and often the final one, is the need for approval, for the person to smile at us or otherwise give us an idication that we and our communication with them has met with their approval.

4. Feedback
This is usually an emotionally neutral need. We have a question about something which could range from some intellectual concept to a judgement about something looks or sounds. This differs from approval in that it is primarily a need for information.

5. Affection
We all have an ongoing need for physical contact with others. From handshake to intimacy there are a wide variety of types of contact. Affection usually implies acceptance and approval, and so is interconnected with these two.

Every action we take in our lives that is not involved in meeting some physical need like the need for food, drink and prtection from the weather is driven by our desire to fulfill some human interaction need.

Watching young children, we can learn a lot about the need fulfillment process. A child does something to get mommy or daddy's attention. If that something they do does not work, they try something else. Once attention is gained they then engage in all kinds of behaviors and watch for our response. Anything that gets a response will be repeated. Anything ignored will quickly fade from their battery of behaviors.

The child seeks to discover the behaviors that will get them the approval and affection of their parent. In this process the child develops behaviors to then use on others they meet. It is not a conscious process, but rather an almost instinctive one. This testing process continues throughout life. Hopefully as time passes a person learns better behavioral strategies to get their needs met.

By being aware of the process we use to get our needs met we can do two very important things:

1 - We can identify exactly what it is that we need. This may sound strange, but we usually do not know exactly what it is we need or are seeking to accomplish as we interact with others. Because we do not consciously know what we are trying to gain we often expend a great deal of time and effort in fruitless behaviors, getting only a tiny fraction of our needs met and all too often not getting them met at all. Once we identify exactly what it is we need we can;

2 - Identify the most optimal strategies for meeting that specific need and then practice those behaviors, refining them for optimal results from minimal efforts.

What would it be like to be able to tell your companion that you need to be held or to have your appearance approved of before going out in public or your ability to provide praised and have them respond exactly the way you need them to in order to have your need of the moment met, because both of you understand what the need is and the behavior that will fulfill that need? Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to get the approval you need from virtually everyone, because you have developed a strategy that works virtually all the time with virtually everyone to get approval from them.

This is the essence of the SOE. Identifying our needs and developing the most optimal strategies for getting those needs met, and then sharing that information with the entire society, so that instead of frittering away our lives barely surviving emotionally, we can excel in every endeavor.

Our needs are many and complex, yet many are simple and can be easily identified. We all need affection. One of the most efficient forms of basic affection is a hug. Hugs give us the opportunity to exchange a level of approval and acceptance that is desperately needed by everyone. Studies have demonstrated that without physical affection we devolve into insanity and death fairly rapidly. Hugging appears to be an optimal strategy for getting our basic need for affection met. Their are other affections needs, but the primary one seems to be satisfied well by simply hugging and being hugged periodically.

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Replies:

More SOE Basic Concepts -- Mark, 21:03:47 08/15/05 Mon
- Re: More SOE Basic Concepts -- QUITTNER, 12:51:36 12/13/05 Tue
This is really beautiful, Mark. I love the concepts. (NT) -- Esther, 10:27:34 04/17/10 Sat