In 1943, Abraham Maslow arranged human needs into five levels from low to high, like a staircase: physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.
This theory held immense universal significance.
Yet when applied to individuals, it essentially became a step-by-step escalation of desires: gaining Long and longing for Shu, until one ultimately craved spiritual fulfillment and lasting existence.
Because humanity knew it could not achieve physical immortality.
Otherwise, value needs and the need for eternal life, those two rivals at the very top of the pyramid, would surely have fought each other bloody.
And that raised a question...
Why did humans generally regard having children as an important intermediate goal in life?
A thesis hundreds of pages long could be condensed into just two words—
Eternal life.
There was no hope whatsoever for an individual's longevity, but passing down one's genetic fragments and chromosomes was another form of pursuing eternal existence.
Even so, countless Myths and Legends still existed throughout history and across the world.
Beyond the yearning for individual power, a great portion of those primal desires could be attributed to the words "eternal life."
Gods, immortals, devils, angels, King Yama, demons...
Many humanoid beings in mythological tales possessed not only all manner of strange abilities, but also one shared trait...
They could live for a very long time!
Lifespans of hundreds, even thousands of years!
This was most clearly displayed in Journey to the West, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of China.
The intelligent stone monkey king of Water Curtain Cave on Flower-Fruit Mountain watched his companions grow old and die one after another. Filled with sorrow, he crossed mountains and seas to find Mount Fangcun, where he took Subhuti as his master, received the name Sun Wukong, and mastered all kinds