Geko's Attic

05 July, 2025

Priorities in Disguise: How Emotional Need Shapes Everything You Do

Introduction:
The Hydra of Priorities, and the Head You Forgot

You already know this hydra. She whispers to you every time you say, “I should, but…”

You want to be a good friend, but you need solitude.

You want to help someone move, but you need your weekend free.

You want to go out, but you need silence, space, stillness.

You should, but you won’t. And if you’re honest, the reason is simple:

You’re not driven by logic, you’re not driven by morals. You’re driven by need.

Everything you do, and everything you refuse to do, serves a hidden emotional priority.

It might wear the face of charity, duty, or affection.

But it feeds the same gut-level truth: you do what satisfies you.

Even when it looks selfless. Even when it hurts others.

Even when it hurts you.

Once you understand this mechanism, you can look at anyone, including yourself, and reverse-engineer the behavior back to the root.

And what you’ll find there isn’t pretty.

I. “Everything we do, we do for ourselves.”

This quote doesn’t have a clean source but it's a classic philosophical and psychological axiom, echoed by thinkers from Nietzsche to Ayn Rand, from Freud to Jordan Peterson. The closest formulated version might be from La Rochefoucauld:

“Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise.”

Or from Thomas Hobbes:

“No man giveth but with intent of good to himself.”

And even a little bit of Kantian echo: that intention matters more than action.

In modern psychology, this lands squarely in the realm of egoistic motivation theory, the idea that all seemingly “selfless” acts are ultimately self-serving, because they satisfy some internal emotional or psychological need.

And that brings us to the core idea:

Behavior is a reaction to internal emotional priorities, whether or not we’re aware of them.

That idea is not just valid. It’s foundational.

II. The Selfish Engine Behind Altruism

Let’s start with the easy lies.

You help people. You donate. You listen. You volunteer. You care.

But strip away the story and what do you get?

You volunteer at an animal shelter — because YOU need to feel useful.
You comfort a grieving friend — because YOU need to feel needed.
You donate to a cause — because YOU need to feel virtuous.
You post about it — because YOU need applause.

You may also want to help others. Fine.

But the act only happens if it feeds your internal need.

If it didn’t, you wouldn’t do it.

We call this altruism. It’s just ego in a mask.

III. When Logic Loses to Need

Sometimes the need is so strong it overrides reason entirely.

A man spends himself into debt just to appear wealthy — because his need for admiration trumps financial logic.
A woman stays in a toxic relationship — because her need for belonging is stronger than her self-preservation.
A student cheats — because the need to succeed outweighs integrity.
You avoid a friend in crisis — because your need for peace outweighs your empathy.

These aren’t “bad decisions.”

They’re honest reflections of what mattered more in that moment.

And that’s the heart of this essay:

Your behavior always reveals your truest priority.

Not your stated beliefs. Not your public identity.

Just your need, raw and unfiltered.

IV. Reverse Engineering the Beast

Let’s take a look at the beast’s anatomy. Here’s how it works:

You observe a behavior. It looks irrational.

But if you ask: What internal need does this satisfy? — suddenly, it makes perfect sense.

Behavior: Overdressing, flashy cars, compulsive status updates

→ Need: Admiration. External validation.

They don’t care about the thing, they care how it makes them look.

Behavior: Micromanagement, obsession with plans, rigid routines

→ Need: Control. Certainty.

They’re not trying to “help.” They’re trying to ward off chaos, because chaos brings anxiety.

Behavior: Constant arguing online, moral posturing, crusading

→ Need: Superiority. Moral certainty.

They don’t want justice, they want to be righteous.

Behavior: Staying in misery, avoiding new paths

→ Need: Safety. Predictability.

They fear change more than they hate their current hell.

Behavior: Avoiding confrontation, people-pleasing

→ Need: Approval. Fear of rejection.

Not kindness, just fear in a polite outfit.

This isn't guesswork. This is diagnosis.

You don’t have to read people’s minds. Just watch what they do.

Behavior is truth. Words are camouflage.

V. The Lie of “Should” vs. the Truth of “Need”

You say, “I should call my father.”

But you don’t. Because you need distance more than you need obligation.

You say, “I should attend that wedding.”

But you cancel. Because your need for solitude trumps social expectation.

You say, “I should be more present with my kids.”

But you scroll your phone, dead-eyed. Because your need for escape is stronger than your guilt.

“Should” is the language of conflicted priorities.

Need always wins. Always.

Until you acknowledge what you actually need, you’ll keep betraying your own “shoulds” and pretending it’s just fatigue or circumstance.

It’s not. It’s the truth leaking through your behavior.

VI. Pitfalls, Excuses, and the Easy Way Out

Before we keep carving deeper, let’s pause and confront two tempting lies, the kind that almost let people wriggle out of this whole thing.

These two pitfalls won’t destroy the idea. But they will neuter it, if you’re not careful.

They turn truth into trivia, and that’s worse than ignorance.

1. Overreduction: "So Everything Is Selfish? Then Nothing Matters."

The first trap is philosophical laziness.

You hear that all behavior is self-serving, and you say,

"Well, then nothing is noble. Nothing is good. It’s all just ego. So who cares?"

Wrong.

Just because something is self-serving doesn’t make it bad.

It means it’s human.

It means your virtue is built from real bones, not fantasy.

You adopt a child? That satisfies your need to nurture, belong, or be remembered.
You risk your life for a stranger? That satisfies your need to act on your values, or to protect your worldview.
You give everything to a cause? That satisfies your need for purpose.

These things are still good. But they are good because they cost something.

The fact that they also feed a need doesn’t erase the sacrifice, it explains the fuel.

This isn’t about calling everything selfish.

It’s about refusing to pretend otherwise.

You can be good. But you are never pure.

2. Blind Spots: "That Might Be True for Others, But Not for Me."

Ah yes. The universal exception clause.

You believe this applies to:

The narcissist
The influencer
The rich show-off
The moral crusader
Your ex

But not you.

You’re balanced. You’re aware. You do things for the right reasons.

If that’s what you think, then you’re the worst offender.

Because delusion disguised as virtue is the hardest to confront.

You don't need to be a liar to others. You just need to lie to yourself.

And the lie sounds like this:

“I’m not like those people.”

Yes, you are.

If you can’t reverse-engineer your own behavior, if you can’t say, “I needed to feel important, so I overcommitted” or “I needed control, so I sabotaged the plan,” then you’re not insightful. You’re blind.

And your blindness will keep ruling you from underneath.

That’s the real risk:

Not that the idea is wrong, but that you’ll use its sharpness to cut others, and never turn it on yourself.

This isn’t a sword for judgment, it’s a scalpel for autopsy.

And if you’re afraid to use it on your own skin,

then stop pretending you’re seeking truth.

VII. Why Most People Can’t Admit This

Because it destroys their image of themselves.

Because it unravels their moral performance.

Because it kills the story they tell to survive:

“I’m a good person.”
“I do what’s right.”
“I’m selfless. Generous. Loyal.”

No, you’re not.

You’re strategic. You’re wired. You’re emotionally driven.

You are, like everyone else, an animal with a story.

But if you can admit it, you gain power most people never touch.

Because now you’re not ruled by your needs in secret.

You know them. You can question them.

You can even, sometimes, choose against them.

And that’s rare.

Conclusion: The Mirror That Bites Back

The moment you understand that behavior is the exhaust of emotional need,

you lose the luxury of pretending.

Every action is a signal. Every refusal, a clue.

Every pattern you hate in yourself is pointing to a hidden, hungry thing.

You don’t need therapy. You need honesty.

Look at what you do. Ask what it gives you.

Don’t flinch.

Most people will lie until the day they die,

convinced they’re noble while being ruled by fear, vanity, loneliness, and longing.

But not you.

If you’ve read this far, maybe you’re ready to see the beast.

Not to slay it.

But to understand that it was always you,

wearing a different mask every time.

04 July, 2025

They Didn’t Sell Out, They Had Kids

On Priorities, Adulthood, and the Quiet Death of Ideals

I. The Quote and the Crux

“What happened to all the hippies?

They fucked, they had kids, they had to get jobs, and that was the end of it.”

That’s it. That’s the whole damn story. Put it on a T-shirt, print it on a gravestone, teach it in school.

That sentence - some say it was George Carlin, others just nod and say “yep, sounds like him” - captures, in one breath, what ten documentaries and a thousand think-pieces haven’t dared to say:

The revolution didn’t die in a hail of bullets. It died in a minivan, outside a supermarket, somewhere between football practice and divorce court.

And no, it wasn’t a betrayal. It was logistics.

You want to know what kills youthful rebellion? Not riot cops. Not propaganda.

Cribs, mortgages, and grocery bills.

It wasn’t about selling out. It was about budgeting effort.

II. Priorities: The Quiet Puppeteers

Here’s the secret nobody wants to admit:

People aren’t driven by ideals. They’re driven by whatever they can’t afford to ignore.

That’s it. That’s the machine. That’s how the system wins: by waiting.

When you're young and broke but unburdened, ideals are cheap and easy to carry. Marching in the streets? No problem. You don’t own anything worth losing.

But once the rent is due, once the kid’s got a fever, once your mom needs a home nurse and your job’s dangling by a thread, you don’t have the luxury of changing the world. You’re too busy trying to survive it.

Priorities are the hidden riverbed beneath the flood.

They shape the flow: quietly, invisibly, and with far more permanence than emotion ever could.

You don’t choose priorities.

They emerge, hard and sudden, like rocks underfoot.

And when they do, all that beautiful idealism gets demoted. Not deleted, just pushed out of the driver’s seat and into the glove compartment.

III. It’s Not Betrayal, It’s Arithmetic

You didn’t flip sides. You didn’t “lose your fire.”

You just did the math.

You realized that marching gets you a photo op. A steady job gets you heat in winter.

You used to shout, “No justice, no peace!”

Now you say, “Let’s talk about this after bedtime.”

And the system doesn’t even have to fight you for it. It just... waits.

Because it knows the algorithm:

Most people don’t betray their former selves, they just recalculate.

“I still hate capitalism,” you mumble from behind your ergonomic office chair.

“I still believe in environmental justice,” you say, sipping from a single-use coffee cup in your car that burns unleaded dreams.

It’s not hypocrisy, it’s survival math.

Maslow had it right: self-actualization is great, but try doing yoga about your inner child when your actual child is screaming and your rent just went up again.

IV. A Shift, Not a Collapse

Let’s not get poetic about it. The ideals didn’t vanish.

They just got... repurposed.

The rebel becomes the teacher. The protester becomes the donor. The anarchist becomes the guy who posts angry Facebook comments from a recliner.

The hippies didn’t vanish, they metabolized into the system.

They stopped shouting and started whispering.

They traded barricades for booster seats.

And slowly, the sharp corners of conviction got sanded down by fatigue, paperwork, and PTA meetings.

Sure, some of them still care.

They vote. They grumble.

They tell their kids not to become cops or CEOs.

But they also pay taxes, buy life insurance, and quietly hope their kid does become a lawyer because somebody in the family needs a steady job.

The fire’s still there.

It’s just burning under layers of convenience and shame.

V. So What Now?

Here’s the ugly question you don’t want to ask:

What happens to ideals when they’re no longer top priority?

Do they hibernate? Do they evolve?

Or do they quietly rot under the weight of daily bullshit?

Maybe they just become a vibe. A vague flavor.

Something you remember fondly, like your old band or your first protest march.

“Ah yes, I once cared deeply about social justice. Now I have plantar fasciitis and a timeshare in Mallorca.”

And before you ask - no, this isn’t an insult.

This is biology meets bureaucracy.

It’s how the world works. It’s how you work.

You don’t have to convince people to stop caring.

You just have to make caring expensive.

VI. A Final, Bitter Thought

You thought the system would fight you? No, my friend.

It doesn’t need to lift a finger.

The system doesn’t kill rebellion, it waits for it to grow up.

It has time. You don’t.

It knows you’ll age. It knows you’ll soften.

It knows you’ll look at your exhausted face in the bathroom mirror and whisper,

“I just don’t have the energy anymore.”

It doesn’t crush your ideals.

It buries them under forms, fees, diapers, deadlines, and just enough comfort to make discomfort seem reckless.

And one day, your child will come home from school, fire in their eyes, full of rage and dreams and revolution.

And you’ll smile and nod.

And you’ll say, “I used to feel the same way.”

And then you’ll ask if they remembered to turn off the lights.

Because electricity isn’t free. Not anymore.

Outro: You Weren’t Broken, You Were Reprogrammed

You didn’t sell out. You didn’t give up.

You just stopped being able to afford your own ideals.

The world didn’t ask you to abandon them. It just kept adding weight until your hands were too full to carry anything but the bare minimum: bills, kids, your own exhaustion.

And slowly, so slowly you didn’t even notice, you started to mistake survival for wisdom.

You started calling cynicism “realism.”

You started calling compromise “balance.”

You started calling the death of your fire “maturity.”

Let’s be honest now.

People aren’t driven by ideals.

They’re driven by whatever they can’t afford to ignore.

And the system knows exactly what you can’t afford to ignore.

That’s why it wins.

You didn’t lose the fight, you were trained out of it.

And the worst part?

Now you’re one of the voices telling the next generation to “be realistic.”

To “think long-term.” To “pick their battles.”

They will. Eventually.

Just like you did.

Because this isn’t a betrayal. It’s a cycle.

It’s the quiet, relentless hum of a machine that doesn’t crush rebellion, it bills it monthly, until it overdrafts and cancels itself.

And the revolution? It’s still out there.

But it doesn’t need to be silenced.

Just delayed long enough for everyone to grow up.

30 June, 2025

Yes, But Not Today and Not Me: The Lie Beneath the Virtue

I. Introduction — The Pitchfork Paradox

Many years ago, back when the streets of Bucharest still howled at night with packs of stray dogs, a friend of mine said something that never left me.

“Look, I’m all against euthanizing the stray dogs. But if one of them bites my son, I’m going to get a pitchfork and kill them all myself.”

I remember the silence after he said it. Not awkward. Not judgmental. Just… quiet. Something had shifted in the room. Not because I disagreed. I didn't. But because I recognized something in him, in me, in everyone — something ancient, primitive, and true.

Something that smelled like blood under the perfume of our polished beliefs.

His words weren’t about dogs, not really. They were about the line between principle and pain. About how close we all stand to that line and how fast we’ll cross it when it’s our child, our comfort, our little pocket of peace that’s threatened.

And once I saw that line, I started seeing it everywhere.

“We must save the planet!” — but don’t ask me to give up my pool or separate my trash.
“We must eat better!” — but not if it means cooking, or god forbid, feeling hunger.
“We must speak the truth!” — unless that truth offends me, then shut it down.
“We must change the system!” — but not if I lose anything in the process.

We live in a time of ideals. But we practice comfort.

It’s not even hypocrisy. It’s something else, a clash between belief and inconvenience. Between ideals and instincts.

This essay is about that contradiction. About the lie we wrap in slogans and hashtags — the lie that says, “Yes, this is important. But not important enough to actually make me change my life.”

II. The Illusion of Virtue Without Cost

Most people aren’t monsters. They’re not villains in some grand drama of hypocrisy. They believe in justice, kindness, sustainability, fairness. They mean well.

But meaning well isn’t the same as doing good.

And what I’ve come to believe is this:

People want the virtue of caring, without the cost of caring.

This isn’t just laziness. It’s deeper than that. It’s psychological, it’s evolutionary, it’s structural.

We’re built to say “yes” to ideas and “no” to inconvenience, and then rationalize the hell out of it.

We say:

“I care about recycling, but sorting my trash is confusing and annoying.”
“I believe in reducing waste, but paper straws suck.”
“Of course I want clean oceans, but I’m not giving up my shampoo bottles.”

We don’t even realize how often we’re doing it. Because we’ve become masters at decoupling belief from behavior. And the modern world helps us do it with social media likes, symbolic gestures, and performance politics that let us feel good without doing good.

As Slavoj Žižek once said:

“We feel guilty for participating in consumerist excess, so we buy organic coffee or donate to a charity — and continue shopping like before. It’s ideology at its purest: a ritual that masks the reality beneath.”

We don't change. We just perform caring. And in that performance, we lie. Not just to others. But to ourselves.

III. The Psychology of Comfortable Contradiction

To understand this phenomenon, we have to go into the basement of the human psyche — the ancient wiring that predates morality, hashtags, or compost bins. Here are the culprits behind the contradiction:

1. Loss Aversion

According to behavioral economists like Daniel Kahneman, humans are far more sensitive to losses than to gains. Giving up the convenience of bottled water feels like a loss, even if the gain (cleaner oceans) is abstract and long-term.

We’ll fight harder to avoid losing a luxury than to obtain a moral victory.

2. Hyperbolic Discounting

We discount future benefits compared to immediate gratification.

I’ll cool down in my pool now. Let future generations deal with the drought.

We know better, but the present feels louder.

3. Moral Licensing

After doing something “good,” we subconsciously give ourselves permission to do something bad.

“I voted green, so I can take long showers.”

“I went vegetarian for a week, so I can indulge now.”

It’s a psychological trade, as if virtue were a currency to spend.

4. Cognitive Dissonance Avoidance

When our actions don’t match our beliefs, it creates inner tension. Rather than change the action (which is hard), we adjust the narrative.

“It’s just one plastic bag.”
“I recycle most of the time.”
“Nothing I do matters anyway.”

The truth hurts, so we reshape it until it doesn’t.

5. Tribal Morality

We don’t always care about what’s right. We care about who’s right.

We align with causes not to make change, but to signal belonging.

That’s why people scream about injustice online but stay silent when it happens at their dinner table.

6. Effort Minimization

Evolution trained us to conserve energy. To avoid unnecessary risk. To seek safety, not revolution.

So we support change as long as it doesn’t change us.

As Jonathan Haidt writes in The Righteous Mind:

“The mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant. The rider is our reason, but the elephant is our intuition and instinct. And the rider’s job is usually to come up with excuses for where the elephant wanted to go in the first place.”

IV. The Hydra’s Many Heads: Examples From the Everyday

You’ll see this contradiction everywhere. Not just in others — in yourself. In me. It’s the universal human blind spot.

A. Environmentalism

“I support wind energy!”
— Until a turbine is built near my house.
“We must protect biodiversity!”
— But don’t stop me from spraying my lawn or driving my SUV.

B. Health and Fitness

“I want to be healthy.”
— But I don’t want to cook, walk, lift, or sweat.
“I want to lose weight.”
— But I’m not willing to be hungry, to be bored without snacks, to sit with discomfort.

C. Parenting and Education

“Kids need discipline.”
— But not mine. He’s just misunderstood.
“Schools should be reformed.”
— But don’t remove the system that benefited my child.

D. Freedom of Speech

“Everyone should have a voice.”
— Except that guy. He’s offensive and dangerous.
“I support open dialogue.”
— But only for views I already agree with.

E. Justice and Fairness

“We must tax the rich fairly.”
— But I’ll still deduct everything I can. I’m not rich, just smart.
“No one is above the law.”
— Unless it’s someone I voted for.

F. Empathy and Animal Rights

“I love animals!”
— While eating factory-farmed chicken that never saw daylight.
“Ban fur!”
— But leather’s fine. That’s different.

These aren’t just hypocrisies. They’re fragments of the human condition. And once you notice them, they’re everywhere.

This hydra doesn’t live in palaces. She lives in your shopping cart.

V. Conclusion — When Principles Meet Pain

I’ve thought about my friend’s words many times.

“I’m all against killing the dogs. But if one bites my son…”

He wasn’t being dramatic, he was being honest. More honest than most people who hide their pitchforks behind social media filters and recycled hashtags. And I'll be the first to admit I'd do the same.

That quote is a confession from the edge — the moment where a belief is tested and instinct reclaims the throne.

And that, right there, is the core of it:

We say we want a better world. But not if it means less comfort, less control, less convenience for us.

We say, “Yes, but not today and not me.”

We want to believe we’re virtuous — but we don’t want to pay for it. We don’t want to sweat, or sacrifice, or be afraid. We want to keep drinking from the poisoned well while claiming to support clean water.

And so we lie.

We lie with good intentions.

We lie while wearing the right colors, saying the right slogans, clicking the right petitions.

We lie with the gentlest smile and the best excuses in the world.

And the world burns politely, quietly, while we sleep soundly in our comfort.

The Crux: Belief Without Cost

The most chilling realization?

People don’t want change. They want to feel good about supporting change.

They want to say, “I’m one of the good ones.”

But not, “I’ll pay the price to make it happen.”

This is what my friend’s quote reveals.

The moral stance collapses the second it meets personal pain.

And it’s not just him. It’s all of us.

That’s why it haunted me.

When principle meets threat, instinct wins.