I Wish

We've all watched Aladdin, right? Magic lamp, 3 wishes, funny genie, we all know the story.

Of course, the biggest impact this movie had was the common question asked on the playground of "If you had 3 wishes, what would you do?" Obviously, everyone instantly thought to cheat the system. Wishing for infinite wishes, wishing for infinite lamps, wishing for infinite genies, wishing for infinite birthdays, etc. Ironically enough, the question was never really about what you would wish for. It's probably the ultimate example of "the grass is always greener on the other side" because people can literally wish for near-anything and instead focus on the one wish they can't have.

However, I'm not here to write about the gluttonous behavior of 5th graders, I'm here to ask what's the difference between "I want" and "I wish". After all, these phrases mean almost the exact same thing, yet one is treated as a fantastical hope whereas one is treated as the reasonable desire of someone. Why are wishes treated as a far-off dream while wants are considered basic human desires? For example, I want to get an A in this class, but I wish I would stop getting political ads.

Some might think the distinction between the two is obvious, "It's because your wants are something you have power over, but your wishes are things you can't control." But you have control over anything if you work hard enough to gain it, like I could be an astronaut if I dedicated myself to non-stop studying of astrology, took all the most impressive classes, and did all the extracurriculars imaginable, so what's really different between my wishes and my wants? 

I can control if I get political ads, I have adblockers, the ability to tell Google I don't want these ads, and the ability to just not use the internet. So, what's actually the difference between me wanting a wife and me wishing for 1 gazillion buckaroos? 

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Why are you reading my blog like that? I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

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Ok fine, I'll pretend I have the answer.

The distinction between the two isn't whether you can control your desire or not, like some might think it to be, but if you think you can control your desire or not. This might just sound like a dumb extra step, but it actually matters a lot to whether or not something is a wish or a want. It has a lot of importance to if something is actually rational or not.

All it really comes down to is whether you deem your desire as feasible or not. I could be an astronaut, but I'm not gonna do all the work required to so, I got video games to play instead. It's only a wish for me to become an astronaut because I've self-imposed it as one, I've determined it as impossible, but I've decided that getting an A in this class is possible and reasonable for me to do.

Your wishes and dreams are only wishes and dreams because you've self-determined them as such, if you tell yourself they're reasonable to reach, they suddenly become so. A wall's height is dependent on if you view it standing up or sitting down. Wishes and wants are the same thing, the only reason we view them as different things is because we decided they were different. So yes, I do think it's unreasonable for me to stop getting political ads because it's not like I can quit the internet or use adblockers when YouTube blocked them. 

By the way, if you want to know how you can get infinite wishes, it's actually really simple. The genie only limits you from having more wishes, he doesn't limit the number of wishes in general. If you asked the genie for 1 wish, he doesn't have a problem with that. So, you just need to manipulate the numbers of wishes, not having more wishes.

There are a multitude of ways you could do this, such as wishing for the genie to be really bad at math(he could give you negative wishes though), to wishing for the genie to select a random number of wishes for you between 1-100(you can get 1 wish so it's not cheating), to wishing for the ability to create anything you imagine(this includes another genie), to wishing for time travel and your wishes to carry throughout time so you can travel back to when you first found the magic lamp and have 5 wishes(assuming you don't have to wish for time travel again to not cause a paradox which means 4 wishes), etc.