Instincts are acting as an interface between the spark of life or center of consciousness existing in life-forms and universal laws of nature structuring the environment. If senses are the gates, a being uses to retrieve information from the surrounding world, instincts are the doorkeepers adjusting behavior to the retrieved information. They are the guardians making sure that a specific behavior is the shortest way to natural equilibrium and evolution of life. Free will is an important component of the human condition. Through free will and conceptual intelligence humans have the ability of short-cutting instincts.
Humans can and often do behave against natural laws by choice or by ignorance.
In the wild, the malfunction of an instinct causes pain or even death in extreme case. Pain is not an unavoidable part of human condition, it seems to be a result of a violation of natural basic laws. The more mankind is able to understand its own instinctive behavior the more it has the knowledge to avoid psychological and physical pain, or death by non natural causes. Most of the instinctive impulses are directly or indirectly connected to nutrition and sexuality. Pleasure, physiological and psychological necessities are key elements in these fields.