Okay, so now I'm back on Nice, Shiny, Fully-Operational Intarweb. This is good++.

On the way home today I overheard people talking - being used to everything about my own mental processes makes it easy to come across things when in the sensory world of The Outside; it went something like this.

Girl 1: <blah blah something about something that isn't really wanted>
Girl 2: So don't do it.

There is mild profundity in the naiveté of this statement, and I'm not sure how, because it's something I do usually say. 'I don't wanna work over the summer!' 'So don't.'

I suppose this is the whole 'want/need' thing. 'I don't need to work over the summer.' 'So don't.' This is far better. Usually, though, I will expand a little; 'I don't want to do xyz' 'Okay, don't do xyz.'

The profoundness comes from the application of this to higher echelons of 'want'. 'I don't want to die!' 'So don't.' et cetera. The hypothetical question becomes this: If everyone in the world got everything they wanted, would it be a bad thing in the end? It's the great test of human nature, I suppose. Give someone everything they want, and as long as they have everything they need as well, would the world come to a crashing halt?

Well, see, I sort of answered my own thought there. (I see what I did there.) Giving people everything they 'need' will result in people of relative stability who want a lot; giving people everything they 'want' will result in people who are missing things they don't know that they need. Needs are necessities; wants are luxuries, and today's society needs both to be fulfilled.

And yet that wasn't always the case; people originally got by on what they need, and decided what they want based on what they had. One got a family, and a home, and acquired the three basic provisions of civilised life - food, shelter, and internet er, clothing. Money isn't on there; it's a common means of trading goods for services, and a means to an end.

Yet by that, I'm not exactly going to think of saying people shouldn't want. 'Want' produces passionate responses; 'I want to touch the stars', 'I want to write a book', 'I want to enrich the world!'. I have no idea if I'm going anywhere with this, since it's an issue to be thought about, I suppose. No answers, just.. questions. XD

And on an unrelated note, toasted sandwiches are love. And also...

collision detection is love

how I feel today: mmm, good tea, yay