Only when these 'priority interrupts' , to use some computer jargon, have been satisfied can we attune to the higher aspirations of the mind and spirit. This multi-level prioritisation scheme is called by AI researcher Rodney Brooks 'Subsumption Architecture'. On a slightly higher level, we cannot concentrate if we need to go to the toilet for example or are very thirsty. Our hormonal concentrations, driven by the body's sensors, change the priorities around the brain and help implement, in rather complex ways, such a multi-level control system. I think with what we observe - civilisation invariably breaks down when people are dying of starvation or war.
Physical security seems a pre-requisite for the pursuit of more advanced behaviours.
This is a social survival aspect, less critical than the animal version but just as real and vital to a person's self respect and view of themselves as a human being. Readers of this essay are lucky, they are perhaps among the few people in the world with the leisure to pursue the next level, spiritual survival needs. This is the ability to go beyond the world as is and to look towards other possibilities, better ways of living. Despite the considerable emphasis many people place on social standing and their outer natures, this aspect of personality is ultimately trivial and empty. The abilities of a person reside in their middle nature, it is here that they can deal with social inputs and it is from here that the outer shell gets generated.