The phrase "personal imperative" is not a standard English phrase.
A personal imperative is something that someone might use as a personal motivation for themselves, such as a motto or guiding principle. For example, if someone's personal imperative was "Do what you love," they might use it as motivation to pursue a career or hobby they are passionate about.
The hero of "Villages," Owen Mackenzie, is also a familiar figure: one of those quintessentially Updikean men, plagued, at once, by vague existential doubts, frightening intimations of mortality and a hunger for salvation -- someone torn between the comforts of domesticity and the lure of independence, the strict moral codes of the 50's and the heady personal imperatives of the succeeding decades.
The popular concept of 24/7 is so last decade before the unrelenting barrage of work and personal imperatives, advanced endlessly through e-mails, texts, tweets, blogs, Facebook and LinkedIn posts, e-mailed voicemail and cellphone calls from around the globe.
I watch each episode the night it airs (a rarity for me), because I want to know what happens next, but what gives the show extra weight and import are those examinations of personal imperatives versus community needs.
"H" prompts the personal imperatives of handwashing to reduce risks of multiple infections (listeriosis, toxigenic E. coli, and many enteropathogens as well as hand-to-hand spread of influenza viruses) acquired by fecal handling.
A writer, speaker & healer with a holistic perspective & personal empowerment imperative.
I feel a need to keep my Bosnian self alive, to keep the culture alive as well as the memory, an imperative – personal and generational.
Many factors play into the transformation of people into audiences, including commercial imperatives, personal identities, storytelling trends, laws and social mores and of course technological innovations.
The old imperative that personal fulfillment depends on active engagement with helping others also survives -- in families, churches, charities, service professions like medicine and teaching and support organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous.
A statement accompanying the show describes the work as "embracing the vitality of an animistic, spiritually-charged universe," and includes a quote by Ms. Smith saying that her work originates in a personal narrative about "how imperative it is at this moment to celebrate and honor the wondrous and precarious nature of being here on earth".
Keeping close, quantified track of personal progress is absolutely imperative for one group of people: recovering alcoholics and drug addicts.
