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Message for July 06

NEEDS AND DEEDS

Many years ago when I was on a Management Compensation Committee, we were faced, not unusually, with a manager who thought he was worth more than the company paid him. The Chairman was for his part quite upset that despite a substantial raise in the previous year, he did not appear content. I remember then saying to my superior that a satisfied need is a forgotten need. Last year’s increment or yesterday’s feast is quickly forgotten – present and future appetites demand admission.

However, we are today at a time in our history when needs are being rapidly met – at a ‘hygiene’ level in urban settlements, at any rate, and we are entering a full-fledged consumer society. Following social scientist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, some of our social groups are rapidly approaching the state of ‘self-actualisation’ – moving through ‘ego’ needs, hopefully, into a realization that a return of benefits from the satiated individual to the less advantaged of a developing society is a desirable objective.

Philanthropy, therefore, is beginning to be a concern of those whose ‘hygiene’ needs have been more or less satisfied, and remain capable of continuing that satisfaction without further effort per se – and good ‘deeds’ perhaps could now be attended to.

For us in Masonry, this should be our target group, as they are now relatively younger at admittance into acceptable affluence, leaving them disposed to consider good deeds as providing some ‘self-actualisation’ potential. Relief being one of our cardinal tenets,
such potential must not go un-addressed. It is in this context that Projects such as our Cornwallis Senior Citizen’s Home

Project, now under construction in Bangalore, has more than a symbolic significance – it is a practical manifestation of our ‘Relief’ platform and provides a visible example of what good deeds can achieve, through honesty of purpose.

Therefore needs must through their fulfillment, recede into the background of the consciousness of the upwardly mobile and be replaced by deeds of public good. That’s the quality of membership to the Fraternity we should be seeking.