Can you be hungry without noticing?

Can you be hungry without noticing it?

If you give it a quick thought, you’d probably say, Sure. Why not? What if you get caught up in a task that really takes all your focus, and you don’t eat for a few hours, and then when it’s done you suddenly realize your stomach is growling and grumbling. You’ve clearly been hungry for a while!

That’s from a quick thought.

But then think about it a little more slowly. What does it mean to be hungry? The body needs food? Sure. But what if you were in a coma, let’s say? Or–to really get to the extreme end of the thought experiment–what if you had your brain completely separated from your body and put into a glass jar? Your brain was wired up to still survive and think, but you were no longer connected to any physical sensations in the body.

Would it be possible to be hungry? Is hunger merely a physical state of the body–like being diabetic, or being constipated (sorry)–or is it a state of mind that is dependent on your perception of that state of the body?

Suppose the brain in the jar was poked and prodded with electrical circuits that simulated the feeling of hunger. Being completely disconnected from the body, the feeling would have no correlation with the state of the stomach. It’s pure sensation.

Again, can you feel hungry without noticing? Do you have to notice a feeling to feel it?

Think about your answer, and then reflect on how that could apply to other feelings besides hunger: Being cold. Being tired. Being uncomfortable. And even more purely mental states: Being nervous. Being sad. Being bored.

If you can’t feel something without noticing it, then does that mean the feelings only exist in awareness?

And if so, are they “real?”

Meditation #43: A word to the wise…

“Half a tale is enough for a wise man.” – Scottish proverb. Maybe.

I read something online today that used this phrase in passing, and I immediately loved it. I tried to do some research to see where it originated, but I was surprised at how difficult it was to find. (Here I am using “difficult to find” in the modern parlance, meaning “Google didn’t have it on the first page of results.”)

I found several things that said “Half a tale [word] is enough for a wise man,” but I don’t know what that means. I also found several places that referenced the phrase, “A word to the wise,” and it seemed to have some relation to that. (e.g. “A word to the wise man is enough.”) But I like the phrase as I read it, so that’s what I wanted to find. For me, half this tale wasn’t enough. I wanted the whole thing.

Eventually I did find a website of old Scottish proverbs that contained the whole thing as part of a longer…thing. So, that’s what I’m going with.

You can’t be mad about something you don’t know.

When you’re in the car and someone cuts you off, and you find yourself getting mad, try to remember that you don’t know anything about the person in the other car.

You may think you know who they are. They’re a jerk. They’re thoughtless, careless, selfish, reckless.

But you don’t know that. The person you’re imagining in your head is a composite of all the drivers who have ruined your day in the past. It’s as if whatever car is used to perpetrate the moving injustice against you, it’s always driven by the same nebulous, nefarious roadway villain with a blurry face and not a care in the world.

Truth is, though, you probably don’t know what the person who cut you off looks like. You don’t know if they’re a man or a woman, in some cases. You certainly don’t know their name, where they came from, if their parents are still alive, if they know someone who survived cancer–or someone who didn’t survive. You don’t know their favorite album, their favorite movie, their favorite kind of food.

And if you don’t know any of those things about this person, how can you possibly know the one thing that is actually relevant to this situation:

Why did they cut you off?

Are they really selfish? Were they distracted? Are they just a bad driver?

Instead of applying any of those possible scenarios to them, which only serve to fuel your anger, be gracious and give them the benefit of the doubt. Remember that you have undoubtedly cut someone off in the past, probably more than once. Maybe you didn’t realize you did it. And maybe neither did this person.

Maybe you had a really good reason. And maybe does this person.

Maybe it was the one and only time in your life you ever did anything like that and you later regretted it.

And maybe the same goes for this person.

The truth is, getting angry at someone on the road for how they drive is just about the most futile waste of mental energy ever invented by mankind. It’s literally shouting in the void–or into the traffic, as it were.

It’s futile. It accomplishes nothing. It’s anger for the sake of itself.

So next time you find yourself fuming at another driver, stop and ask yourself what you really know.

You can’t be mad about something you don’t know.