Hunger

There comes a time, nearly every evening, when I find myself eating a piece of chocolate, or cookie dough, or some other dessert, and, often as much, I will say to myself, "I don't particularly care for this fruity chocolate or strange cookie dough, or bag of cheap chocolate chips." And then, minutes will pass, sometimes and hour, I'll watch a television show, or read articles on the computer about the top ten cute pets, or lovely cities, and then I will walk to the kitchen and take another piece of chocolate, or bit of dough, and I will eat it. Then, usually without even going back to sitting down, I will have another piece, and perhaps another, sometimes saying to myself that by finishing the item I will have removed the temptation and will no longer be bothered by it. I suppose Adam and Eve shared a similar fate, sure child birth was horrible and the land brought thistles up, but at least they didn't have that apple gnawing at the back of their mind's anymore.

I write this because I have just been to the kitchen to have another small scoop of cookie dough that isn't particularly good. So, why? Is it enough to blame biology? My body is constantly telling me to eat fats and delicious foods on the off chance that a global apocalypse happens tomorrow and food becomes scarce. In this line of thinking, my body is so much more pessimistic than I am, a sack of stupid meat, while, in my mind, my beautiful mind, I know that the global apocalypse is probably not happening. Although, I'm pretty sure that it is my brain, my stupid energy loving brain that is telling my body to get more cookie dough, so that it can feed itself more. My brain wants to make sure that it has enough energy to develop and accurate critique of this season of the Bachelorette, or Before Midnight, or it wants to weary itself by rewinding the events of the day, replaying mistakes, missed chances, as if it could change things.

I suffer from a lack of self-control. Marcus Aurelius would be disappointed. If you don't know who he is, he was a Roman general who wrote a book about not being moved by anything, though, to be sure, he obviously cared a bit too much about writing and his legacy if he devoted a portion of his life to writing a book. If my attempts at writing are any indication, it would take someone fifteen to twenty lifetimes to construct one very poor book.

Sometimes, I will avoid eating the extra piece of chocolate, or shoving down a half bag of crappy chocolate chips. I will sit downstairs, watching a television show, congratulating myself on being so good. And, as I watch the show, it will become gradually very clear that I am starving, that my stomach is shrinking, and I'll attempt to avoid the feeling, reminding my stomach and mind how good it feels to restrain, how we're bettering ourselves. They never listen. By show's end I'm back upstairs, opening cabinets, dumping bits of cinnamon sugar on the tip of my tongue in an attempt to have something, anything, sweet. Tomorrow, tomorrow I remind myself will be the day that I begin to work on billboard abs. Tonight, and for the foreseeable future, I'll be pawing my way through cookie dough, vaguely dissatisfied at the taste, but no longer hungry, at least for a moment, though moments pass so quickly.