Slow Havamal: 21

[kylec]

The 21st verse reminds us that the cows in the field have enough sense to stop eating and head back to the barn at some point, but an unwise man cannot fathom his appetite.

The beasts of the field have enough sense to stop when they’ve had enough. Obesity doesn’t seem to be an issue in wild animals, even when their food is plentiful. Why, then, do men consume to their own detriment? The chief difference between humans and most animals as I see it is our mental complexity. We have the capacity to think in abstractions, which open up new worlds of possibility. Animals act on sensory feedback, and varying degrees of mental activity that tend to prioritize the sensory experience, and in many cases, are solely reliant on it. Few animals have higher reasoning capacity—maybe dolphins and whales, maybe elephants, but not many others.

When a creature is attuned to the world around it, its senses do a pretty good job of mapping its experience to the outer world. They tell it when something is painful or pleasurable. Human senses do the same, but we also have the capacity to build up complex abstraction of the world, and then to react to those abstractions as if they were sensory stimuli. Then we can react to those reactions again, on and on to the heights of fancy. This allows us to reach some stunning achievements. It also allows us to go insane.

Many people have had the experience of emotional eating to console themselves. Or to celebrate a joy. Or satisfy a particular craving (man, a kouign-amann sounds good right now). Or dozens of reasons other than hunger. From the animalistic standpoint, food is energy. It’s medicine that heals us from starvation. We need only a modest amount, and no great variety or fancy preparation. But throughout our lives we come to build up more complex associations with foods. A corn dog reminds us of childhood and summer, while fettucine alfredo, of a bad date. A smell can bring nostalgia or revulsion (neither of which is contained in the physical sensation, but rather is a meaning constructed by the recipient). “Food” itself may mean “love” to one whose mother cooked every night with passion, or it may mean “shame” to another whose role models reminder her that every other thing makes you “fat”. These are oversimplifications. The network of meaning we tie to the simple aspects of food and eating can be mind-bogglingly complex. Such is our capacity as humans. We can create brilliant worlds, or mad ones.

The unwise man is one who doesn’t understand why his appetites drive him the way they do. Remember that by appetites, I don’t just mean hunger. I’m also referring to the desire to accumulate anything beyond the basic necessities. Why does he accumulate that thing? What physical need does it serve? What emotional and intellectual needs? These are the things a wise man knows. Which isn’t to say he doesn’t crave them. But in doing so, he learns something of himself. He learns the deeper impulse that turns the sensations of his world into symbols. It’s not a warm cinnamon roll he wants, but the feeling of security and love on a beautiful Saturday morning as an innocent child. In being honest about our appetites, we can inhibit them, or more easily satisfy them. But the unwise man is left to his bottomless plate that bloats him with unintegrated complexities while starving his soul.