A Need to be Hungry, the Reprise

June 17, 2008

In my previous post, I spoke of the physical lack of hunger I’ve been assailed with since last week. I will now talk about the more psychological one: a need to be hungrier for life.

And I mean that in the figurative sense.

Have you ever seen a cat taking a very erect stance as it anticipates for something? An unsuspecting mouse comes out and, as quickly as a blink, this cat starts pouncing on the mouse which has now become a prey? That cat’s intensity and ferocity are what I need. Right now, I feel less like a cat and more like a sheep that’s become enervated from eating wilted grasses.

Where this problem is most prominent is with my attitude about writing. No, I don’t intend to renounce this hobby - I’m actually reading a book about writing, again - but my interest with it needs a spike. I’ve been feeling rather low these days and the search for inspirations has been fruitless. This is not the same as writer’s block, oh no. Writer’s block is merely being unable to put two words together. Lacking inspiration is being able to write, and yet you feel your writings are soulless, like how every words has no purpose but to increase word counts and to foist an image of intelligence.

To be inspired is to be so hungry, that you just can’t wait to suck up every opportunity to polish your craft, until you let it create something worthy of being called art. I gauge this hunger by looking at my unfinished drafts. There are four. Two of them are short stories about music and a modern day Benjamin Button. One is a collection of new words I’ve learned. The last is a post about a friendship turned sour. On my inspired days, I view these unfinished drafts and I get overwhelmed by a desire to finish them. On days like today, I just shrug them off.

Inspirations are what I need, for in its absence life is a drably colored tapestry that everyone wants to get rid of. Maybe beauty will be returned to life when a change of sceneries comes. Things are looking up though, as next July, my sister will be going to Taiwan, and I just might skip an entire week of work and go meet her there.

PS. For samples of blog posts with thought-provoking formation of words, go visit John Silver’s “The One Rant Machine“. 

Posted by nightdreamer at 4:16 pm | permalink | comments[12]

A Need to be Hungry

This title is not directed to starved countries - and that includes the Philippines, as much as the government want to delude you into believing otherwise. By all means, feed the hungry until the hunger goes away.

A harmonious world is a world where everyone can eat three meals a day. Much has been said about foods being the winners of hearts. Since last week, though, they couldn’t seem to win my heart.

I’m becoming anorexic.

Thanks to a less-than-competent hag, I’ve been having this cold for a week. For me, colds have always been mere bagatelle, and aside from giving me an uncontrolled overflow of mucous, I have never paid it much mind.

This time, though, my cold is different. I can tell. I need to feel a hunger before I eat. Since last week, I’ve never felt any hunger. I would go on many hours not eating, and would eat only because I felt that it was obligatory. And this is pretty bad. There are days when I see my favorite viands laid in front of me, yet I couldn’t consume them with my normal fervor, and eat only half as much as on normal days.

Yes, I can see that it’s making me lose weight, and I think I’ve become lighter than I was weeks before. But this is not how I want to lose weight. I want to lose weight by working out, by exercising until I have sweated profusely. It’s definitely healthier than not eating. I don’t want to go the way of Karen Carpenter.

What do I do?

Posted by nightdreamer at 1:22 pm | permalink | comments[61]