Not long ago, I read a book by Hemingway that I found extremely boring. It told stories I wasn’t interested in, about characters who didn’t do anything in particular and wandered through streets with long, unpronounceable names. Since I have a tendency to want to take something from everything that comes into my life—and books are no exception—I took with me the phrase: “It was a different kind of hunger.” He repeated it throughout the book at various points. It almost seemed meaningless, but to me, it meant something. It reminded me of a topic that’s been quietly pressing on me for a while.Like when you suddenly feel like eating everything in sight. But you start eating and nothing satisfies you—you always want something else. And then you realize it’s not hunger for food. It’s a different kind of hunger.Like when you think you want to go out, and you do—you go out, you even have fun—but you still feel an emptiness, an unmet need. It was a different kind of hunger.In human life, there are needs and satisfiers. Basic needs that allow us to survive: sleeping, eating, drinking, eliminating waste. In animals, these are met in a simple way: if they want to sleep, they lie down wherever and sleep; they hunt to eat; they look for water to drink; and when they feel the urge, they eliminate waste wherever they are. Humans are more complex and don’t want just any satisfier for their needs. If someone’s tired, they don’t want to—or often can’t—sleep just anywhere or in any way. If the bed is too hard, or it’s too cold, too hot, or too noisy, they probably won’t sleep well. The same goes for the other needs. Like when you’re craving a burger, but all you have is broccoli—and suddenly you’re not hungry anymore. Hunger is hunger, right? Any food should satisfy it. Unless it’s a different kind of hunger.The complication of satisfiers is the specialty of the modern world. Things used to be simpler: humans needed shelter, and they built a hut. It didn’t matter if it was spacious and comfortable, well-lit, had multiple rooms, or good airflow. They wanted to eat, and they ate what was available—what they hunted or gathered. They didn’t wait until they could eat a specific kind of fish or fruit. Or at least that’s the story we were told.Nowadays, we’re bombarded with an endless array of satisfiers, starting with marketing and advertising, which specialize in selling us things we don’t need to satisfy needs we don’t have. Or what need, exactly, is fulfilled by buying that cute little lamp or that puzzle-piece holder?I remember when I went through a phase of being obsessed with marketing—even dabbling in neuromarketing (!). I read books and watched videos, fascinated by how they captured people’s minds and led them to buy a product or consume a service they obviously didn’t need. The techniques were almost hypnotic—subliminal messages, colors, movements, a thousand strategies to dazzle your attention span, and even create the illusion that you were choosing what you consumed. Until I hit a point where it all felt like a scam, a deception. That marketing thrived by selling smoke to people who bought it because they had a different kind of hunger—and, as such, would repeat their consumption ad aeternum, endlessly trying to fill a permanent void. A great business, no doubt—but one I didn’t want to be a part of.We go around like a ball without a handle, bouncing from product to product, experience to experience, service to service, image to image, ideal to ideal—a schizoid collage designed to keep us distracted with its colorful lights, locked into the addictive loop of the endless search for something that will satisfy that hunger—which isn’t for food.Hunger for what?What kind of hunger?Do I really need to buy that piece of clothing, travel to that place, or sign up for that origami master’s degree?What is the most basic need I’m trying to meet with such complex satisfiers?Is it a need—or is it something else?Can I see it?Do I want to?Here’s some food for those with a different kind of hunger.Thanks for reading—even in times when it seems to have become a luxury.Cheers!

A reflection on modern life's insatiable cravings, exploring the difference between true needs and the endless pursuit of fulfillment driven by “a different kind of hunger.”

A different kind of hunger

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A different kind of hunger

A different kind of hunger

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