Desires and Needs

Hunger is physical. 

Our body needs food. Our physical state drives physical hunger.

Hunger is also emotional.

We desire particular tastes, forms, and food experiences. The stories we’ve experienced, we tell, and we hear drive emotional hunger. 

One keeps you alive. The other makes you feel alive.

We need food. But we want tacos. We want the corner booth, the smell of lime and cilantro, the basket of chips before the meal. The margarita. 

We want the feeling.

Needs keep the system running. Desires shape the experience.

This isn’t just about food. It’s how we build products. Lead teams. Raise our kids. Choose careers.

Desires and needs don’t always align. Sometimes they conflict. Sometimes they trick. 

Our job isn’t to eliminate desire or shame it. It’s to see both. To design for both. To build stories around both. 

A life that meets only needs is starvation.