Maslow’s Apex:

Bitcoin’s Liberation of the Human Spirit

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

Conceptualized by Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist of the early and mid-1900s, Maslow's Pyramid is a layered model of human motivation and represents a hierarchy of needs ranging from the most fundamental to the most complex. At its base lie the basic needs: air, water, warmth, and rest. Ascending the pyramid, we encounter safety and security needs, followed by psychological needs like belonging, love, and esteem, including the need for prestige and a sense of accomplishment.

Maslow posited that one must satisfy the needs at each level before progressing to higher-order needs. This progression symbolizes our journey through life, striving to fulfill increasingly complex desires.

Culminating the pyramid is self-actualization, which Maslow described as the "full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentials, etc.".¹ This pinnacle represents personal development, creativity, and fulfillment, leading to enhanced self-acceptance and independence.

Beyond self-actualization, Maslow later introduced the concept of self-transcendence, positioning it above self-actualization. This highest stage extends beyond the individual to encompass a broader existential understanding. In self-transcendence, one's focus shifts from self-fulfillment to the well-being of others and a connection to something greater than oneself, such as nature, the universe, or a higher power. It represents the ultimate level of psychological development, where one experiences a deep sense of interconnectedness and purpose beyond the self.

This comprehensive model of human motivation encapsulates our journey from basic survival to the highest realms of psychological growth and fulfillment.

Running to Nowhere:

For much of my life, I felt like I was running in place. Working hours on end, begging to trade ever more of my scarce time for money so that someday I could arrive in a better place. It felt like running along a Mobius strip, like the end goal would never be achieved, that just when I thought I'd turned a page, I found myself treading over footprints I'd left before.

Self-actualization sounded great, but when did I have time for that? I couldn't even manage to get through a book. I was too busy. Too busy punching my time into a time-clock, too busy wondering why I couldn't seem to move beyond the fragile static spot I'd managed to find for myself in the world. I was frozen by fear: fear that despite the hours upon hours I'd spent trying to pursue "stuff"..., stuff that I felt would magically lift me to some imagined "next step" in life, I'd find myself still running, still striving for some imagined "more".

Enter Bitcoin:

I'd played with bitcoin before. Indeed, I'd spent years trading the "magic internet money" for tokens from other projects. Countless hours spent anxiously monitoring fluctuating charts, as red and green candles bobbed up and down mocking me for my inability to find order in the chaos. Still, I thought I'd catch my break, figured the universe had done me enough ill and that at any moment, the stars would decide I'd taken enough punches and would align for me. But that fantasized syzygy never materialized, and instead, I found myself time and time again the victim of scams and fraud.

Eventually, I cut my losses. I sold it all, moved on, and picked up second and third jobs. I'd failed at "striking it big," so I dove headlong into the rat race. I shifted from trading magic internet money for worthless tokens, to trading my hours to dollars. I devoted myself fully to my work; 14-hour days split between employers, yet I couldn't seem to get ahead.

It was December 2017 and I was at a Christmas party scrolling on my phone when I saw an article stating that a single bitcoin was now worth $16,000. I felt sick to my stomach. I had $200 in my bank account and considered for a moment whether I should put it into bitcoin. After a few minutes of frenetic inebriated contemplation, I decided against it. I'd missed the lifeboat and the only option left for me was to try to swim to shore.

Within two months, the price of bitcoin had contracted by half. I proudly pat myself on the back feeling vindicated. I knew it was too good to be true. Bitcoin was dead; and I had jobs to work if I ever wanted to get anywhere in life.

January 2021: I'd been hard at work for the past four years, averaging 200 hours of overtime per year. I'd gotten a promotion and felt pretty good about my place in the world. It was the middle of the global Coronavirus pandemic, but who really cared if the world was on fire and people were out of work? I was doing fine, staying in my lane, following the prescribed steps. For once, I felt that maybe after 30 more years of breaking my back for dollars, I'd actually get somewhere.

Scrolling through the news as per usual, the headline: $40,000 Bitcoin... I recoiled in shock the way one might if they were confronted by a dead relative. "But... you died?..."

Consider that you were confronted by a dead relative. Logically, your first question might be how on earth they were standing in front of you at that moment. That was precisely the question I had for bitcoin.

Although I couldn't have known it at the time, this moment represented a major turning point in my life. I was about to embark on a truth-finding journey to the very core of the concept of money, a journey that would lead me down unexpected paths and behind the veil of the monetary system.

So I plunged down the "Bitcoin Rabbit Hole", and I would never be the same again.

The Rabbit Hole:

Central banks around the world shoot for a 2% inflation rate. While central bankers claim that this target was chosen to provide maximum employment and price stability, the truth is that this number was selected arbitrarily by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand following an off-hand comment during an interview by one of their central bankers in 1989. By the mid-1990s, Canada, England and the United States had adopted this as their own inflation target.²

Let's consider what this target means. Consider a typical wage earner's 40-year career. If this person were to save the same amount of money each year over the course of their career, monetary inflation would have devalued the purchasing power of their savings by over 30% by the time of their retirement. This represents the erasure of about a third of their savings. Twenty minutes out of every hour they ever worked, gone.

To make matters worse, central banks and governments around the world issue new money they create for free into the market to fund wide-sweeping policies and initiatives. This contributes further to monetary inflation and devalues their citizen's savings at an even faster rate. During the US Government's response to COVID-19, the money supply grew by over 30%³, instantly devaluing American citizen's saved wealth and, in time, leading to the greatest price inflation seen since the 1980s.

In October of 2023, while the United Kingdom was suffering from 6.7% consumer price inflation, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was being interviewed and said, "Inflation is a tax. It's a tax that impact [sic] the poorest people the most." The interviewer pushed back, countering that inflation was not a tax, but a feature of the economy, to which Sunak replied, "Economically, the impact that it has on people is to eat into their pockets, it eats into their wallets, it puts up the prices of things, it effectively acts as a tax."

In a world with top-down prescribed monetary inflation, the average person is forced to work two jobs. The first, is how they acquire money; the second is how they keep it. If the value of your money is constantly eroding away, simply saving will not allow you to save your money over time.

This is a key point: Fiat monies (government-issued currencies not backed by a commodity like gold) are bad at holding their value through time.

A Better World:

Let's imagine a better world, a world where your dollar could hold its value through time... Imagine telling your grandkids that candy bars were a dollar when you were young, just as they are for them. Imagine retiring and having the full value of every dollar you saved throughout your entire life, where the first dollar you saved as a child had the same purchasing power as the last dollar you made before leaving the workforce.

In this world, once you saved a dollar, you knew you'd locked away its purchasing power forever. You didn't need to worry about your money evaporating from underneath your feet, didn't need to fret over whether you'd chosen to invest it in the right fund or whether you had an optimal allocation to bonds, equities, or commodities. You were no longer trying to outrun inflation.

Gone was the hidden tax that subtly ate into your wallet and increased the prices of the goods you needed. Gone was the fear that you wouldn't have enough. Instead, you worked your job, perfected your trade, and did your best to produce and positively affect your community. You paid your bills, bought what you wanted, and saved your surplus for your future self and your family.

A Freer World:

Imagine yourself in this world. The freedom you would feel knowing that all you had to do was work, spend less than you made, save the remainder, and your future self was set. How much brighter would life look? What dreams and aspirations could you accomplish? What hobbies and skills could you devote time to learning now that your fear of keeping up with eternally rising prices was gone? How much happier would you be?

Would you feel more optimistic about the world your kids would inherit? Imagine your children not having to grow up with a parent who lived in a constant state of paralysis over finances.

This is the world that a 2% inflation target takes away from you. This is the world that government deficits rob your children of by saddling them with the payment of interest on our ever-growing mountain of debt.

Debt entraps you in the present. Stuck and unable to dream new futures until the debt is paid.

Back to Bitcoin:

While it's compelling to imagine a better world, let's refocus and take a look at some of Bitcoin's properties for a moment.

Decentralization: Bitcoin operates on a decentralized network using distributed blockchain technology. This means it isn't controlled by any single entity or government, unlike traditional currencies that are managed by central banks.

Security: Bitcoin's network is secured by the consensus mechanism known as Proof of Work. At its simplest, this requires that real-world energy be expended to confirm transactions and produce new bitcoin. If a money can be produced for free, how much is it really worth? Bitcoin's Proof of Work mechanism tethers it to reality by imposing real-world costs on its operation.

Immutability: Once a transaction is confirmed and added to the blockchain, it cannot be reversed. This immutability is secured by the network's computational power and real-world energy use.

Limited Supply: Bitcoin's decentralized code enforces a hard limit of 21,000,000 coins, as well as setting the rate at which they are issued in a way that no person or government can change it. This is the maximum number of bitcoin that can ever exist.

A Bitcoin World:

Imagine a world where your money could hold its value through time because no person or government can devalue it by flooding the economy with new money just by changing a number on their server.

In this world, once you saved money, you knew you'd locked away its purchasing power forever. You didn't need to worry about your money evaporating from underneath your feet when "experts" decided to fund a new forever war, didn't fret over whether you'd chosen to invest in the right fund or whether you had an optimal allocation to alternative monetary proxies. You were no longer trying to outrun inflation because there were a set number of money units, and no one could affect the money that you held or subtly pilfer its value.

Gone was the fear that you wouldn't have enough. Instead, you worked your job, perfected your trade, and did your best to produce and positively affect your community. You paid your bills, bought what you wanted, and saved your surplus for your future self and your family.

Believe it or not, this world already exists. Bitcoin's decentralization and fixed supply mean that no one can devalue your bitcoin holdings. The energy used by its network of miners and nodes secures it from attacks and allows it to continue to retain the properties that make it the perfect money.

Please don't take my word for it, do your own research and study Bitcoin yourself; but after 2.5 years of dedicated education and exploration, I have only become more assured that Bitcoin can uphold these promises.

We do not have to wait for governments to make the world a better place. Despite its youth, a brighter, calmer, more reasonable parallel world has already been built and is only growing stronger and more vibrant by the day as builders shift to contribute their skills and time to the world of Bitcoin.

You don't have to continue working within a broken system that, by its very design, robs and steals your saved value. As for me, I chose Bitcoin.

The Consumerist Lie:

As humans existing in a consumerist society, we are bombarded 24/7 with messages designed to make us feel like we are somehow incomplete until we purchase an endless litany of marketed products. The sad part is we "buy it" in both meanings of the phrase.

Imagine finally buying your dream car. Imagine yourself happy, not a care in the world, driving along a curving street alongside the ocean at sunset, the warm breeze blowing through your hair.

This is the future you dream of, the "where" that you work so tirelessly to reach. But "who" will you be in that idealized future?

You tell yourself that you'll magically become your ideal self, that you'll land a job you love, lose weight, eat better, and have a better relationship with your partner and kids. Best of all, you just know that the dream car is exactly what it will take to finally release you from all the stress you feel in your daily life.

You know this with certainty because you've never seen an unhappy person in a single car ad. That checks out, right? Ads don't lie. The car "must" make you happier. I hate to shatter that reality, but no. Despite everything the marketers would coax you to believe through their unrelenting multi-billion dollar assaults on your eyeballs, that dream just isn't a reality.

More likely, you'll buy that car and keep working the same job you hate to pay for its upkeep. You'll keep eating junk food. You'll continue to argue with your partner, and the stress... It won't go away.

You'll still struggle to juggle your rent or mortgage payment with increasing food and energy prices. You'll still fight to get a raise each year at work, while inflation marches on unchallenged. You'll still have your savings devalued every time those in government decides the economy needs more money in it...

The Consumerist Lie tells you will ascend Maslow's Pyramid on a ramp made of stuff; that once you have all the material things you've ever wanted, you'll find yourself at Maslow's Apex, find fulfillment, and be able to finally realize the full extent of your talent and potential.

You want to believe this lie... It feels right. It aligns with every advertisement you've ever seen and aligns with what you see from your favorite celebrities and media influencers. But it's not real... I think deep down, you already know that...

"[We] are persuaded to spend money we don't have on things we don't need to create impressions that won't last on people we don't care about."

-Tim Jackson

This lie pervades every aspect of our society. But there is a way out....

"Bitcoin is not a trade. It is the exit!"

-Olawale Daniel

Maslow and Me:

Three years ago, I began to discover that the money was broken. While this could well have led me down a path of nihilism and despair, there was a single star shining bright in the dark sky. This star, twinkling orange high above me, seemed to reach out as though calling out to me, telling me that there was another way and that I didn't have to spend the rest of my life trudging aimlessly through this newfound darkness.

So I began to study, to devote my time to discovering just what Bitcoin had to offer me. I learned that there was a place I could put my savings where they could never be devalued. Learned that I didn't have to live a life of ever-increasing scarcity, but could live in a world of ever-growing abundance. It's changed me.

For the first time in my life, I had an incentive to stop consuming as much as possible in the present. I'd adopted a monetary standard that would preserve my purchasing power over time and realized that my excess capital was worth more to future me than it was to present me. So I cut back on needless consumption and saved.

As time went on, these savings began to propel me up Maslow's Pyramid. I had a safety net that didn't need tending, and this removed my fears about losing access to my basic needs, providing a level of security that I had only dreamt of previously. As these fears fell away, I stopped thinking of myself as a failure. I learned to love myself.

I developed the sense that I was on the correct path, that I'd found the "orange-brick road" and was now strolling along its smooth curves and gentle rolling hills. As I met and began to get to know my fellow travelers, I began to get the sense that I belonged here. A multitude of souls from all across the globe, marching tools in hand to create a brighter future.

Bitcoin and Self-Actualization:

As I have climbed Maslow's Pyramid, I've stopped thinking solely of "where" I want to be in the future and have begun to consider "who" I wish to become. I consider what habits I want to have, my mindset, attitude, and skills. I've taken steps to work toward becoming this ideal version of myself.

As I began to understand the nearly unstoppable nature of Bitcoin's decentralized network, I realized that its value would likely only continue to grow as more of Humanity continued to view it as the way out of a dark world and embrace it. I realized that if it did indeed continue to increase in size and scale, that my income was likely never to rise over the course of my life.

My first job paid me the equivalent of ₿0.5/hour (50,000,000 "*satoshis*" (a unit of bitcoin equal to 1/100 millionth of a bitcoin). Fast-forward 7 years and I'd doubled my dollar-denominated earnings. If we consider the bitcoin-denominated wage though, my pay had fallen to 200,000 sats/hour (₿0.002/hour).

After to my "big" promotion in 2020, I was only making 75,000 sats/hour (₿0.00075/hour)... As the fiat-denominated price of bitcoin has grown over the years, my bitcoin-denominated income only keeps falling. Today I am only paid 45,000 sats/hour and if I do not see a pay-rate increase before bitcoin retakes its all-time-high of $68,798, I will only earn 27,000 sats/hour.

This realization that my bitcoin-denominated income would only trend down over time, as the value of my savings grew, was freeing. So I left my job that I hated, (a job that I began to realize I was only performing out of fear of falling behind inflation), and got a new job that was more aligned with who I wanted my future self to be.

I no longer see life as a mad dash for survival until death, but see it as a journey of self-discovery and improvement. I no longer chase money the way I used to. Instead, I simply desire to spend less than I make and to produce a positive output.

"Wow. We just landed on how we stop thinking about money... Exactly what the socialists want, but for real, not made out of hopes and violence. Bitcoiners are something else. Everybody thinks we're obsessed with money, but the reality is, we're in it, so nobody has to think about money. Just spend less than you earn and you'll be alright. No need for credit or debt. Just savings. Simple."

-Hunter Beast

Human Action:

"Good Karma drags us back as relentlessly as bad, and the chain which is wrought out of our virtues holds as firmly and as closely as that forged from our vices."

-Annie Besant

While Satoshi Nakamoto would not release the Bitcoin Whitepaper until 113 years after Besant's 1895 publication of "Karma", I can't help but see parallels between Bitcoin and her writings on karma.

Bitcoin is the chain born of humanity's virtues; it is a chain conceived to grant true monetary sovereignty to humanity and do away with the inherent negative externalities we find in centralized government-issued currency systems.

Karma (literally "action") is a teaching on the consequences of actions. Every action that a human being performs will leave an "imprint" or have its consequences. Every action has its consequences. Whether for good or for ill, each action works out its effects, both in the world and within oneself.⁴

“Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.”

-David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Thus, we arrive back at Maslow's Pyramid.

Beyond Maslow's Apex:

Throughout this piece, we've discussed quite a bit about Maslow's Pyramid. We've traveled from the basic needs at its base, upward through our needs related to security and further still to the psychological needs that when filled, help us function optimally in society. Eventually, we reached Maslow's Apex: self-actualization, the key to fulfillment and meaning in life. Now we will transcend the apex itself.

Published shortly after his death in 1970, Abraham Maslow's last book, "The Farther Reaches of Human Nature", sought to journey beyond the upper bounds of his original Hierarchy of Needs. In this last book, Maslow delved into his thoughts about self-transcendence, exploring higher levels of human development beyond self-actualization.

In an evolution from some of his prior writings, Maslow explored how human development manifests outside the bounds of one’s self. He wrote:

“Self-actualizing people are, without one single exception, involved in a cause outside their own skin, in something outside of themselves. They are devoted, working at something, something which is very precious to them—some calling or vocation in the old sense, the priestly sense. They are working at something which fate has called them to somehow and which they work at and which they love, so that the work-joy dichotomy in them disappears.”⁵

Maslow described the many behaviors he saw as leading to self-actualization:

Experience fully, vividly, and selflessly with full concentration and total absorption.
Make “growth” choices over “fear” choices (e.g. choosing to be truthful over telling convenient lies).
Listen to your “impulse voices” and let the self emerge rather than listening to the voices of the establishment, elders, authority or of tradition.
Break illusion and get rid of false notions, discovering one’s own potentialities.
Open yourself to finding out who you are, where you are heading, and what your mission is.

Speaking of transcending actualizers, Maslow stated that in one way or another, they all seemed to have devoted their lives to the search for what he called “being” values [B-values]. The ultimate intrinsic values of Human nature. These include wholeness, justice, aliveness, beauty, uniqueness (of both one’s self and of others), and truth. Maslow defined these as those which could not be reduced and went so far as to claim that “...these B-values are the meaning of life for most people.”⁵

While there are many facets of transcendence, at its simplest, transcendence can be thought of as “...the very highest and most inclusive … levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to one’s self, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.”⁵

Facets of Transcendence:

Transcendence of Culture: “One can examine one’s own culture … in a kind of critical or editorial of detached and removed way so that one can criticize it, approve or disapprove of it and assume control, and, therefore, the possibility of changing it exists.”⁵

Transcending the Opinions of Others: “This means a self-determining Self. It means to be unpopular when this is the right thing to be, to become an autonomous, self-deciding Self; to write one’s own lines, to be one’s own man, to be not manipulatable or seducable.”⁵

Transcendence of Advertising: “To be clean even in the midst of filth. To transcend advertising means to be above it, to be unaffected by it, to be untouched. In this sense one can transcend all kinds of bondage, slavery, etc. … gaz[ing] upon the whole situation … as if one were looking upon it objectively, detachedly from a great and impersonal or suprapersonal height.”⁵

Transcendence of Time: “One can transcend time, namely in the sense of working hard for not yet born great-grandchildren or other successors”⁵

Transcendence of One’s Past: “Two attitudes toward one’s past are possible. One attitude may be said to be a transcendent attitude. … This means full acceptance. It means forgiving one’s self because of understanding one’s self. It means the transcendence of remorse, regret, guilt, shame, embarrassment, and the like.”⁵

Transcendence of Dichotomies: “To rise from dichotomies to superordinate wholes. … To bind separates together into an integration. … This is the ultimate transcendence, but any step along the way to this ultimate limit is itself a transcendence. … so that the mutual exclusiveness and oppositeness and Zero-sum game quality is transcended. … [so] one can see that these mutually exclusive differences in opposites can be coordinated into a unity which would be more realistic, more true, more in accord with actual reality.”⁵

This is not to say that transcenders are eternally happy demi-gods that walk the earth in a state of cosmic bliss. As Maslow stated:

“I have a vague impression that transcenders are less “happy” than the [self-actualizers] … I sometimes get the impression that they are as prone and maybe more prone to a kind of cosmic-sadness … over the stupidity of people, their self-defeat, their blindness, their fuelty to each other, their shortsightedness. Perhaps this comes from the contrast between what actually is and the ideal word that the transcenders can see so easily and so vividly, and which is in principle so attainable. Perhaps this is a price these people have to pay for their direct seeing of the beauty of the world, of the saintly possibilities in human nature...”⁵

Speaking for myself, I feel this is something many Bitcoiners relate to… We’ve crossed the Bitcoin bridge to a better world. While it can be depressing to see so many still toiling away on the other side, we hope that eventually, we can help all of humanity discover it as we have.

Bitcoin and Self-Transcendence:

In Bitcoin, there exists a profound alignment with Abraham Maslow's advanced concept of self-transcendence, as outlined in his final works. Bitcoiners are driven by a collective vision, transcending individualistic gains and focusing on a transformative goal that extends beyond the self.

Critiques leveled by Bitcoiners against the traditional fiat monetary systems underscore the desire for a societal shift. We highlight the disproportionate impact of these systems on the underprivileged and vulnerable, aligning with Maslow's ideals of justice and fairness. The aspiration for a decentralized monetary system reflects a pursuit of integrity and transparency – qualities Maslow identified as intrinsic values in the highest reaches of human nature.

The personal journeys of many within the Bitcoin community mirror the path towards self-transcendence. In embracing Bitcoin, I, like many others, have developed a heightened awareness of societal challenges. This awareness isn't just an intellectual understanding but an empathetic connection to the struggles of humanity at large. It's a realization of the deep-seated imbalances in our current economic structures, which exploit both human and environmental resources.

This transformation within myself and others in the Bitcoin community is a testament to Maslow’s concept of transcending personal concerns for a greater cause. Our advocacy for Bitcoin is not solely a technological or financial pursuit; it's an endeavor toward creating a more equitable and sustainable world. It represents our collective effort to contribute, in whatever measure, to a future that aligns more closely with “B-values” Maslow described – truth, beauty, and justice.

In sharing my journey and insights through this article, my aim is to extend an invitation to you, the reader. It is an invitation to explore the potential of Bitcoin, not just as a digital asset, but as a pathway towards a shared vision of a better world. In understanding and perhaps embracing Bitcoin, you might find, as I have, hope and optimism on this journey up Maslow’s Pyramid, and eventually vault skyward from its Apex to discover what depths of human experience await.

Closing Thoughts:

"Everything in modern society is downstream of money, even deeply personal experiences like how we connect with our families. When our monetary system is "sick", nothing escapes the repercussions that ensue … If we were to redirect a fraction of [our] time and energy ... [to] rebuilding the monetary system, I believe that many of the challenges we face today would alter course and trend toward resolution."⁶

-Seb Bunney, “The Hidden Cost of Money”

The purpose of this article hasn't been to educate you on the under-the-hood technicalities of Bitcoin. It isn't my goal to convince you to sell all your possessions or plow all your savings in Bitcoin, but simply to portray my thoughts on how a world with Bitcoin can be better than a world without it.

I've stepped into a new parallel world, a better world, and the bridge is strong.

Tick tock, next block.

822794 – Moscow Time: 2324

Special Thanks:

Thank you, Seb Bunney, for your invaluable contributions in the final editing process that greatly enhanced the quality of this article.

Curious to Learn More?

Here are some resources I would highly recommend if you wish to learn more about bitcoin and the better world it is creating:

Looking Glass Education: https://lookingglasseducation.com/courses/free-foundation-course/
Welcome to Bitcoin Course: https://welcome.swanbitcoin.com/
The Bitcoin Standard: https://saifedean.com/tbs
Lyn Alden's 7 Misconceptions About Bitcoin: https://www.lynalden.com/misconceptions-about-bitcoin/

Bibliography:

¹Cherry, Kendra, MSEd. (2023, March 14). Biography of Abraham Maslow (1908-1970). Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/biography-of-abraham-maslow-1908-1970-2795524

²Messeri, Ethan. (2023). Why the 2% Inflation Target?. Michigan Journal of Economics. https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2023/09/04/why-the-2-inflation-target/#:~:text=This%20meant%20that%20costs%20only,and%20an%20increase%20in%20prices.

³Pundit, Calafia. (2021, July 20). A Closer Look At The Covid-Related Surge in M2. Seeking Alpha. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4440012-a-closer-look-at-the-covid-related-surge-in-m2

⁴Karma: The Way of Action. The Pluralism Project. https://pluralism.org/karma-the-way-of-action

⁵Maslow, Abraham H. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. Viking Press, 1971.

⁶Bunney, Sebastian. The Hidden Cost of Money: How Financial Forces Shape Our Lives & the World Around Us. Kindle ed., 2023. Web. https://sebbunney.com/the-hidden-cost-of-money/