Why do we kayak? For the same reasons that murderers murder

​It often takes a break for injury, some kind of punctuation, for us to stop and really consider the risks that we take as kayakers: the time that we use, the money spent, the injuries, the family time missed, the seeming selfishness of it all. You think and think as friends and family question your motivations, and whilst you know in your heart of hearts that you need to kayak, you can never really explain your actions fully in way that actually helps people to understand.

Facial injuries are particularly hard to explain!

Many have written about the freedom of kayaking, the adventure, the adrenaline, and the camaraderie. I present an argument however, which draws all of these elements together - perhaps kayaking is simply all about having your fundamental human needs satisfied.
​

Maslow (1943) theorised that there are six fundamental human needs that everyone has in common, and that human behaviour is simply a series of attempts to meet those fundamental needs. At the base of Maslow’s hierarchy lies the basic physiological needs such as breathing, eating and sex. People will do anything to meet these basic needs, and must do so before they are able to meet needs higher up the hierarchy, such as the need for safety, love and belonging, esteem, creativity, spontaneity and acceptance of reality amongst other things.
 

A representation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs by Factoryjoe (see references below)

​It seems that in Maslow’s world, a kayaker shares the same motivations as an alcoholic, a drug addict, a businessman, a Buddhist monk, and a murderer – our behaviour. The risk taking, the time, the expense, the perceived selfishness, whatever it might be is simply an attempt to meet our needs. Whilst it seems unlikely that we need kayaking to access the first rung of the ladder – physiological needs such as eating, breathing and sleeping, it is perhaps more realistic that kayaking allows us to access the top levels of the hierarchy: 

​We feel love and belonging from building intimate friendships, perhaps even depending upon each other to meet the more basic need for safety and security;

​We develop self-esteem from pride in our unique individual achievements and growing confidence in our capabilities; 

​Kayaking even fosters our creativity, developing opportunities for spontaneity. 

​Perhaps kayaking presents an opportunity to meet most of our fundamental human needs in one fell swoop, and does in fact therefore present a very efficient use of time and money.

​Maslow’s theory has been criticised for over-simplifying the complexity of human needs and social connections (Denning, 2012). In spite of this, his ideas have stood the test of time and are still popular in the fields of management, marketing, and education to name but a few. For me, there remains something attractive in his theory's simplicity. Perhaps we are inherently less complex and individual than we would like people to believe - as kayakers we are not unique, we are not doing anything ground-breaking or paradigm-shifting, we are simply another group of people doing what they need to do to meet their needs. Maybe kayaking and some other behaviours (possibly not murder) even add a fifth level to the hierarchy. Kayaking might even presents opportunities to meet needs which are less quantifiable and beyond egotistical desires - a sort of deep and profound 'okayness' with the world.

​With this in mind, it becomes easy to justify your behaviours to yourself and indeed to your friends and family should you feel that way inclined.

"I kayak because I need to... so there!"

---

​References
Denning, A. H. (2012) What Maslow Missed. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2012/03/29/what-maslow-missed/#29fa42c6455a [cited 28 March 2016].
Factoryjoe (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
Maslow, A (1943) A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), pp. 370-396.