To Be Hungry

Ways to be hungry: for food, righteousness, victory, sex; with your mouth, belly, eyes, hands; for company, affirmation, success, knowledge; for order, chaos, love, a voice.

Hunger is a deep insistent need. It drives you out of lethargy. It motivates you. Not as much as oxygen or needing to pee, but it will get you out of bed. Hunger might be universal. Universals are slippery things. My experience feels ubiquitous, but it isn’t. My sorrow, frustration, joy, confusion seem so wholly present to me that I cannot imagine that they are not universal, but I can only ever know my experience.

Hunger is a biological imperative. It is driven by the brain’s dependence on glucose. Your body will do quite a bit to maintain its steady supply of this charming molecule including, but not limited to, eat Doritos right out of the bag, snap furiously at any irritant, and eat mealy apples.

Even someone else’s hunger drives a response. We are compelled by haunted eyes, cupped hands, and a baby’s wail.

But the hunger that haunts me is wanting to know.

I want to know:

• How super novas led to emotion. That first spark of life had to meet another. I can figure out how that spark’s ongoing struggle could lead to complex life, but how did it start?

• Why music makes you cry even when it isn’t sad. Even without words.

• Where words come from. Why words can be funny.

• Why we keep trying.

While hunger can be debilitating, I cannot imagine life without it. It gives shape to the most rambling of days.