Best-Of Advice

On the hunger

Have you ever lost the hunger? You seem like someone who consumes everything and delights in it all. But have you ever lost it, for even a period of time? If so, how did you get it back? Is the hunger of discovery and experience something that can be taught or practiced without being born with it?

I lose the hunger all the time. Right now, for instance. August left my body sore and my soul polluted. I’m spiritually exhausted, and the strength it takes to recover borrows from the hunger.

It’s not all that unpleasant. It’s not much of anything really, a sort of constant state of anhedonia. Nothing tastes. Nothing touches. Words come out of me, but I don’t recognize them. I’m just here, making a bunch of gestures and signs, interacting with a world I can’t feel.

It’s okay, though. I’ve done this many times. I’m comfortable with the ebb and flow of my emotional well-being. It’s a delicate sine wave, the amplitude and frequency of which I’ve learned to observe from a distance without needing to control it in the moment.

I have enough perspective to recognize the balance. I know better than to course correct with chemicals or consumerism. I don’t wanna fuck up my curve, because I know the hunger comes back.

It’s not up to me, but it always comes back. The trick is in giving up that control, in fully accepting that it’s not up to me, in knowing that nothing is or ever was up to me in the first place, and that it’s all gonna be okay, even if it’s not.

I’ll let you know when I’m hungry again.

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