What is the difference between a want and a need? Can they be the same thing or is there always a contrast in making a comparison? Reply and say what you think, if you want…
Thanks for getting the ball rolling here, Anthony! 😀
Yes, people quite often do seem to use these words in a very similar way. Since I’m a big fan of Wittgenstein, I also agree with him that which ever way people use words is more or less “exactly” what those words mean to them.
A good example of this is the English word “pavement”, which is often used to mean what Americans would generally refer to as a “sidewalk”.
For me, I guess a “need” is something I require to feel OK — in other words, without it I would not feel complete, healthy, well, or anything like that. A “want” is simply a “nice to have”, it’s not required at all.
And that fits this site well: There are no requirements here, everything is optional! 😀
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Hey, look what I found: 😀
when you are introverted and you’ve already spent that many hours in a highly stimulating environment, all you really need is your own peace and quiet. Mind you that I used the word need and not want because that’s really what it could feel like. And that doesn’t have to do with disliking anything or anyone, it’s just that socializing on the top of socializing, or put differently stimulation on the top of stimulation, oftentimes equals total exhaustion for a lot of introverts.
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[…] I gave a rather simple explanation of the way I perceived the difference (see “To Want“). In the end this very simple distinction is perhaps what also explains the end of my […]
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[…] First of all, I strongly agree — insofar as my own interpretation of “wanting” is similar to Mark’s in that to want is (AFAIK) a germanic verb lamenting an ill state of affairs — it is “needy” (cf. “To Want“). […]
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[…] “I want to challenge the mindset that failure is not an option” [ https://wants.blog/2025/12/18/i-want-to-challenge-the-mindset-that-failure-is-not-an-option ] […]
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