闲人

People say things like, "That's something you want, not something you need", but they're really not that different. By no means am I saying that they are the same thing, just that... they are linked by your objective.

Say for example, I need to eat. "Eating" is a "need" that fulfills an objective. The objective is to stay alive, or rather, the objective is that I "want" to stay alive. A need is merely a necessary ingredient to fulfill a want.

Another example, say, I need to eat delicious food. Do I really need to? I don't need to if the objective is "stay alive", but if the objective is "to enjoy a meal", delicious food becomes a necessary ingredient to fulfill that want.

When people say "you don't need that", it usually just means "you don't need that to fulfill the objective of staying alive". As if staying alive is the only reason you're, well, being alive for. Staying alive is just a prerequisite for other things. Fuel is a prerequisite for a car to function, you don't just fill the tank and leave the car. Electricity is a prerequisite for a computer, but you don't just plug it in and leave it there. Being alive is a prerequisite for your existence, but by no means should it be your only objective.

When people think that a need is more important than a want, it just shows a problem in their conceptualization. A need, is something required to fulfill an objective, a want. It's just that some objectives, at some points of time, are more important than others.