| Needs: Needs are
feelings one must have something or do
something. It is often connected with one's body: One has needs to
breathe, to defecate, to eat, to drink, to sleep etc. Needs are like
sensations: They are given to one, and indeed one may say up to a point
that needs inform about one's body like sensations inform about one's
environment. See desires. Some
needs are natural in the sense one is born
with them, and others are acquired by imitation or
education or choice. In either case,
satisfying a need strongly tends to please,
in some way, and a need one has that is not satisfied strongly tends to
pain, of some kind.
Moreover, many human natural needs - such
as: eating, drinking, sex, defecating - are in fact highly ritualized
and subject to many kinds of moral rules that regulate how and when a
certain kind of member of a certain society may or should try to satisfy
these needs. Indeed, this education, cultification, ritualization and
regulation of natural needs seems to be typically human.
Also, many of the feelings that individual
human beings feel as strong needs are in fact acquired, cultivated and
learned, and may be altered in the future by presently altering some of one's
values or one's
beliefs. In short, the "must
have" in human needs is conditional, and in part given by and dependent
on moral and social norms, and in part given by and dependent on
individual human choice or
preference.
And if you feel you "need" to do something, nearly always the choice of
how and when and if is and remains up to you, and is lost only when you
choose to surrender to your emotions.
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