AN - This is the basic survival system and relates back to a time when people lived as hunter gathers. A time of instinct a life balanced between life and death. As yet we have not been able to measure this values system and there are very few peoples living this nomadic life. This is a common value to all and is the first pulse of culture that form 'Pathways in the Mind'.
The first pathway, the basic need to survive, was more of a set of multiple meandering tracks forming a survival path. Prof. Clare W Graves in 1977 argued that this was the prevalent way of life 100,000 years ago. (Note: these time scales are indicative and not precise. These value systems can and do work concurrently and overlap with other pathways in the mind). Life demanded a certain instinct-driven way of life for small bands of food gathers and the tracks formed by following the food sources. This was a way of living, which was between life-and-death with no sense of place. The main basic assumption for survival was the strong protecting the weak and banding together herd-like. In today’s business world, this is not a way of thinking but the undying basic assumptions are still residual and could be activated as an instinct for survival. The film ‘Castaway’ is a good illustration of the journey from ‘success driven’ to survival ‘AN’ between life-and-death by activating a dormant pathway in the mind.
To live this way is instinct driven, living in small bands driven by basic desires to survive. Like a building it is the core foundation on which all cultures are built.