A Good Place to Be Hungry

June 28

Modern life, in all its brilliance, separates us on some level from our most basic urges: food is too readily available for hunger to really chew its way through our stomachs. Water is plentiful and almost never poisoned. We can flip pain the middle finger with a tiny bottle of ibuprofen. And to be clear, none of us would have it any other way. 

It’s in the rare moments that a primordial force sticks its head in through the window that we’re reminded that, for all of our politeness on a Tuesday afternoon, we’re still the same creatures willing to go find a meal at any cost. Willing to kick down every door and smash every window for 4 blocks if it means finding clean water. 

The rational brain, in all its politeness and desire to keep society functioning, rejects this kind of thinking. It wants to control all hungers, become the ultimate mind over machine in every circumstances.

Of course, being hungry is inevitable. The real control we have is over where we place ourselves, making our every day environments a good place to be hungry. 

What if we treated all of our desires that way? Not trying to turn off the hose at the source, white-knuckling our way to freedom, but just taking them as axioms of the self, byproducts of millennia of change, normal, ordinary things for our rational brains to find places for?

Morning Reading is a daily email to help center yourself, reflect, and prepare for the day. It’s sent with love from your friend, Zach in Austin, Texas. He even drew the logo himself.

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