Hunger

I want to talk right now about having hunger.

Not about being hungry. We all know what that is. If I was in a room full of people, and I asked, “How many of you have been hungry?” everybody would raise their hands. Because we’ve all been hungry. That’s what happens when you wake up in the morning and say to yourself, “I’m so hungry, I could eat just about anything!”

Here’s the thing. Once you’ve said that, you go down and fix yourself some breakfast. Or you get in your car and you go someplace where they have a breakfast special, and you get yourself a couple of eggs, some potatoes, a little meat, some toast, and maybe some coffee and juice. Or maybe you’ll choose pancakes. Or maybe cereal and fruit, because you have to watch your weight.

You pay for this breakfast, because you can.

That’s being hungry. That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about having hunger.

Having hunger is different. Having hunger is having something in your life you’d do anything to get rid of. Having hunger is not a choice. Having hunger over for dinner is to have no dinner – or, if you’re lucky enough to have a little dinner, having hunger means you don’t know when you’ll have more dinner. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not.

In some households, as kids, you learn when it’s your turn to eat, and when it’s not. Because, uninvited, hunger has taken a place at your table. Hunger has wormed its way into your house. Hunger doesn’t let you choose to invite it. Hunger invites itself. And it stays as long as it wants, unless and until you can find something to chase it away, and for more than a day.

Having hunger means you have a greedy guest at your table whose only purpose is to rob you of strength and energy and drive and confidence. Business people tell us that when you are hungry you have ambition. Poor folk tell us that when you have hunger you have worry.

Worry is the partner of hunger. Sure, you can get out and try to find work that will chase hunger away. But in today’s world, chasing work takes so much effort, you must find extra energy. Your guest, hunger, is greedy, taking that energy from you. Starving you.

In today’s world we have hungry kids looking at hungry grownups, hungry old people looking at hungry babies. Having hunger means losing the light in your eyes, replacing confidence with desperation, advantage with disadvantage. A person coming from a house where hunger lives will grab at whatever job there is, hoping it will be enough.

Having hunger means going to soup kitchens. Getting handouts. Going to school so you can eat. Finding food where you can. Making it through today, and the next today, and the next today, because this string of todays is all you have.

When you live like this, having hunger, there are two things that happen. One, you don’t move on, you certainly don’t move up, and you don’t dare move over. Two, people who have never had hunger the way you have accuse you of being useless, a drain on this society you wouldn’t mind participating in, if you had half a chance.

Hunger has crept up and up in our world, and because it doesn’t say anything, doesn’t announce itself, isn’t a badge anyone wears with any pride, it’s all too easy to ignore. But hunger doesn’t care if you ignore it. It just goes on. It waits. For anyone.

I am a lucky man. I’ve never had hunger, not this way. I’ve always known there will be a next meal. I’ve had choices. When I’ve been hungry, I’ve eaten, day in and day out. I’ve earned that privilege through education and hard work, yes. But the environment was there. The education was there. The advantage was there.

In a perversely blessed way, I know people who have hunger as a guest. Who have more bills than money, more days wondering whether they may eat versus what they might eat. Sometimes choosing between medicine and milk. In some sense, I can grasp what it must be like when hunger takes a stubborn seat at the table.

But I don’t know what it feels like, not truly. And because I don’t, I’m not as brave as I’d like to imagine I am. They are. Amid their blank worry and sense of hopelessness, they paint on faces that have smiles, they share what they have. They endure. And, enduring, they stare down their uninvited guest and make do for another day.

That’s bravery. That stacks up well against those who define courage as making that last-second Wall Street grab and securing another million bucks. To those who make these deals, good for you. I’ve got a suggestion. Spread a little of it around next time, see how it makes you feel. Go hungry. You can’t possibly have hunger. But just for a day, put down the silverware and the crystal and listen to your real gut. Maybe it’ll teach you something.

I imagine I angered people with this. People who will say, Things are getting better. People who will say, How can you write about it when you haven’t experienced it? People who will say, If they have hunger at their table, it’s their fault – besides, they can get a handout, something for nothing.

That handout is upsetting to some, because it’s unfair.

Maybe so. Maybe all this is wrong. But know this. If you don’t have a choice, if there’s no food, if there’s no alternative, hunger will be there. It’s a potent force. It doesn’t care who you are or where you’ve been. It will take up residence in your home, in your family, and in you. It’s resilient and resourceful. It will hunt you down and kill you. It’s the meanest thing there is.

It knows only one enemy: sharing. Sharing especially when it seems unfair to have to give what you’ve earned to someone who hasn’t earned it. But sharing is the thing to do. When we share, we’re human. When we share, we stare down that unwanted guest. We show hunger the door.

That’s the best work there is. Because staring down hunger saves us, as a people, as a nation, and as a world.