Humans have spent a long time worrying about starvation.
The quivering family clutches their rags around them in the dreary hut. Outside, snow falls, and the rickety walls only welcome the draft. The little boy swallows his crust of bread in a single bite and stares desolately at the wall as tears come to his eyes. That barely did anything for his gnawing hunger. But his mother puts her morsel of bread in his hand, and smiles softly.
“I’m not hungry,” she lies, suppressing a shudder.
This selfless mother kept her boy alive another day, even if it means shortening her own days.
But when we glorify selflessness, all the time, we lose touch with what we need to know to feed ourselves.
Why There’s a Famine of the Soul
Our culture has taught us seemingly good rules – put others first, do as you’re told, be good, be quiet, fit in, get with the program.
At times, these rules help. But not all the time.
If our mother gives away all her food, everyday, even when there is plenty available, she’ll not only starve and die, but she’ll leave her son with no one to defend him.
Instead, these rules are often distractions from what we need most. They teach us to ignore or put off what gives us satisfaction, until we can no longer recognize what satisfaction feels like or that we need it at all.
This leads to a famine of the soul. Although we have plenty, we can’t recognize what nourishes us. We can’t feel what’s good for us.
A bit like “intuitive eating”, not all satisfaction is good. And not all foods are what you really need to nourish your body.
Recognizing your innate need to have satisfaction, where it shows up, and why you need to satisfy it, is key to recognizing what nourishes your soul
Why We Need Satisfaction
Satisfaction sounds nice, ish, But also a bit selfish, a bit snooty, a bit disconnected from what matters most… right?
Wrong.
Because, fundamentally, we are all interested in satisfaction.
In “On Fear”, Jiddu Krishnamurti argues that, “What is a fact is that one is fundamentally… interested in oneself….[Even] If it gives you greater satisfaction to help others, you are concerned with what will give you greater satisfaction….It is the same process, isn’t it?…. What we are really seeking is satisfaction in which there is no dissatisfaction at all.”
In other words, your internal metric for anything good is that it gives you satisfaction. That’s the feeling, that is the signal, that is how you know it is good.
When we feel hungry, we eat, and we feel satisfied.
Likewise, feeling hungry – craving satisfaction – is how you know what you need to take care of yourself.
If you can recognize that in anything “good” you do, for others, for yourself, you are seeking satisfaction, you know what feeling to look for to know if it’s working.
Satisfaction as a Compass to the Good
Although we still stagger towards satisfaction like a horde of hungry zombies, we don’t really know what kinds are healthy.
First, we have to recognize that we need satisfaction.
Second, we have to learn to choose the kinds that are healthiest. We have to learn to observe how our satisfaction feels over the longer term.
You would never tell a child to ignore their hunger, all day, everyday, cause just not eating is more “selfless”.
On the other hand, you would ruin the child’s health if you told them to just eat whatever gives them a thrill, whenever (mine would only eat cake and ice cream).
If you want a healthy child, you have to teach them that hunger matters, and to follow it. Eat when you are hungry.
BUT we also have to choose the foods that make us feel good long-term. The food that makes our body feel good later – that gives us energy and strong muscles and helps us fight off colds. We need healthy food. And we can identify it by how it feels.
Ignoring the feeling of what gives us satisfaction means ignoring our internal compass for what we need and how we need it, and how much we need, for it to be good.
Why We Need to Follow Our Compass Now More Than Ever
The conditions of the world have flipped. Now, instead of encountering starvation, we are more likely to be drowning in too much.
Too much food. Too much stuff. Too much entertainment.
In order to choose what to take and what to leave, we have to pay attention to what brings us satisfaction, and why. How does it feel in your body? How does it feel later? Is there a shift that will make it feel cleaner?
Like food, we can also ask how much do I need? In what form? At what time of day? Why does this feel good but not that?
The things that bring you joy and peace, curiousity and flow, that is where you start.
You have a right to those things. They’re necessary. That’s what gives you a healthy soul.
And to make the world a better place, full of healthy humans, we all need you to follow them.
The world depends on it.
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