Hunger
In the world of life and dying we each create our own needs and each seek to find the completion for these needs; and it goes without saying that one can devise a definition of a person based on his needs, or the way in which he goes about fulfilling these needs. What we "feed" these hungers relates to our taste, figuratively and literally, and from these tastes we can create our self-portraits. On the surface, though, our more basic faculties (hands, ears, eyes, feet) need their food too, and by examining these closely a more general portrait emerges into a shapeable form. Borrowing F again, from a prior piece that seems to fit the theme of this one (not to mention that both fall under the H category), we can fill his blank body with a bit of breath.
In the world of life and dying we each create our own needs and each seek to find the completion for these needs; and it goes without saying that one can devise a definition of a person based on his needs, or the way in which he goes about fulfilling these needs. What we "feed" these hungers relates to our taste, figuratively and literally, and from these tastes we can create our self-portraits. On the surface, though, our more basic faculties (hands, ears, eyes, feet) need their food too, and by examining these closely a more general portrait emerges into a shapeable form. Borrowing F again, from a prior piece that seems to fit the theme of this one (not to mention that both fall under the H category), we can fill his blank body with a bit of breath.
Hunger is the thing our transparent F feels when his poor body feels empty, empty of food or empty of thought or empty of just about anything. F gets hungry when he wakes up after a long night of sleep, but not for a simple breakfast of grapefruit and coffee; he is hungry for a vision after spending an entire night with his eyes closed. In this regard, his eyes need sight in the same way that the stomach needs food and in this need he has the seed for its fulfilment. There is a song about this that gets stuck in his head from time to time, and that must somehow relate to his ears. Our foolish F, waking with empty stomach but only thinking of his eyes --- he rolls over and opens them only to find a blank wall staring at him without blinking. F lets his lids lie down again much in the same fashion as sheets covering a naked body that is not quite used to the air and its crisp morning coolness. While asleep the body hadn't noticed but the consciousness brought on by the new dawn brings with it the reality that bodies do get cold, and eyes get used to their blanketting lids in this same way. F, our vessel for narration, fumbles his finger to find his nose, itches it once blindly before moving their tips over his lidded eyes. "Hungry?" he asks himself, "Yes," he replies inwardly and with that our F opens them wide again. This is how he wakes up.
If hunger is what we feel when we need something, then F's eyes had been locked in a veil of sleep for a long enough period of time to grow restless, involuntarily forced into submission by slumber and now upon waking feel the urge to eat. And what other parts grow needs? His hands certainly must have been hungry for touch, his knees perhaps hungry for some movement, his mind maybe starved for thought. All this every night, over and over again, endlessly transforming our F into a small Sisyphus - doomed to the same self-imposed punishment which never ceases. In this regard, hunger can be defined as any tiny torture our bodies inflict upon our wants and our will. F doesn't know where it comes from, he just wakes up with it like he wakes up with his hands and feet still connected. Having not had any part in directing the creation of his hands and feet, F wonders perhaps if his hunger might actually be a thing imposed on him by the same vague creator of those other physical parts, and if this is so then he must love his hunger as a gift forced upon him. Poor F, his eyes still haven't had their breakfast and he's already burdening his brain with such heavy mental cargo. These questions he ponders might also be some variety of hunger as well, intrinsically linked with the main hub that controls the other regions (stomach, hands, feet, tongue, etc). His feet shuffle underneath him and before he knows it his hands are thrust under the faucet, rubbing back and forth beneath the falling water: their hunger abated for a short while by the warmth of the water. F's gaze avoids the mirror as his hands dry with the air.
Hunger might be something we feel in reverse: rather than being something that grows from a deficiency, it could be something that retreats with abundance. Thinking of it this way, optimistic F lets his eager eyes rest on the window and its picture: tree, bird, cloud, sky. "A feast!" he coaxes himself, and by watching intently the pull to be fed loosens lightly. This could be hunger, too, this retracting. Hunger as Pleasure's opposite? No: Hunger as Pleasure's raison d'être. All of the sudden F's mind is overstuffed and hyperextended: more food than he has stomachs to store it. More thought than he has time to process it. Fumbling F, he cannot seem to shuffle through to conclusion quick enough and must then expell the hypothesis from his brain - digestion gone awry. "No pleasure in that." There must be a difference, then, because some hungers we don't even ask for and some fulfilments don't even provide the firm, unshakeable glow of pleasure.
F's eyes are still hung on the picture outside the window: tree, bird, cloud, sky. Nibbling the scene slowly he starts masticating the portions with his mind's mouth: colors become apparent as do shapes and instantly they all click into place. In between metaphoric swallows, a scatter of birds tear across the sky and what seemed like a still photo became a snippet of moving film for F -- had he been blinking he'd have missed it. His eyes smile a full-belly smile at the unexpected feast and all at once F's need is perfectly completed.
Afterword
Without a proper place to place this, and because it fits so well under the heading of Hunger, please find below a wonderful snippet from Saint Thomas Aquinas that has been following me around since my early teenage years like a delightful shadow:
"The cravings of the senses carry us here and there, but once the hour is past, what do you bring back? Remorse and spiritual dissipation. You go out in joy and often return in sadness, so that the pleasures of the evening cast a gloom on the morning. Thus, the delight of the senses flatters us at first, but in the end it wounds and it kills."
-Imitation of Christ, book 1
