this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025
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What signals do you look for? Do you decide based on reason or instinct?

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[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Well, I almost always try to reason through my own actions, or have already done that reasoning and then come up with a set of guidelines.

To try to put them simply:

Will I likely die or become gravely ill or seriously injured or degrade my body or mind in an extreme manner or experience extreme pain without this thing or activity or... state of being?

If yes, then its a need.

Everything else is a want.

There are of course different tiers of wants and needs.

And, people are different, and some things may move up and down those tiers, and people will never fully agree on every different thing... also, addiction becomes a relevant concept to consider.

This one guy Maslow had some ideas about that once.