Cravings
I'm eating fried rice as i type this, at 959pm, the only real food i've had today (tea, pineapple tarts and chips don't count). But why beef fried rice? Cos i like eating beef. Yet i was missing the flavour of homestyle fried rice, which would then be shrimp or chicken. Guess i messed up there.
Have you noticed how cravings come and go like the passing of seasons? When you're right out there you feel the season in full force, with the thought in your mind: "yeah.. its a cold winter alright" or "oh my god i need to finish this bag of chips", and it changes slowly, without you realising that you stopped eating chips, or that you started craving chocolate, just as this hot/cold winter eases into a dubious spring.
And then theres the craving reversal. One moment you want ice-cream, and the next moment you can't get enough of non-dairy. Or you even reject ice cream (this rarely happens to me, but it does). Like how one moment something doesn't quite matter, and the next thing you know, you'd die to have it, and vice versa.
So why do we crave?
Could it be the perceived lack of something that makes us want it? A perceived lack of endorphins that makes us crave chocolate? A perceived lack of muscle relaxation that makes us crave a back rub? A perceived lack of results that makes us crave tuition? (btw if you didn't think the last statement was a weak joke you need counselling)
Maybe its the groove. I need beer because its tiger time. I need dota cos its competition time. I need chess because i feel intellectual.
It could be peer pressure. I watch a movie because everyone says its good. I learn to appreciate new things like American Football which i used to have no interest in. I study becaue everyone else is (this rarely happens).
Perhaps its brain chemicals induced by the environment. The aroma from starbucks makes me want a coffee. The cool wind makes me want to chew mint gum. The bad smell in the toilet makes me want to crap.
But if not any of these, then what?
Heep once said something like: You know how when its something you can't get, its fascinating, but when its something easy, it doesn't appeal to you.
I think he's nuts.
I don't crave chocolate because i can't get it. It still tastes wonderful, the first piece more then the next (obeying the law of Marginal Utility). I don't drink beer because i'm underaged. I don't crap because i smell the toilet. I crap if i have to.
My theory is that cravings of all sorts arise from a condition of dependency on a pillar of emotional support. If this pillar were to shake or crumble, this triggers a surge in craving for various substances, activities, or objects that will create a temporal relief from the emotional trauma sustained by the pillar, either by inducing happiness, euphoria, or sheer avoidance of thinking (about the incident that caused trauma). Eg. my craving for chocolate could be attributable to my self-perceived worthlessness triggered by a friend saying: "go away" because the "go away" shook an emotional pillar called "self-love" that resulted in anxiety of inadequacy, which led to the desire for endorphins in chocolate to put off those feelings of insecurity by replacing these with happy feelings. (which could explain why Master Pain renames himself Betty in Kung Pao: Enter the Fist)
And if you don't crave?
I think that leads to a breakdown of sorts, when all "escape mechanisms" fail to create a temporal shield around depressive feelings of anxiety and negativity.
I'm glad my escapes are within easy reach. Except that of late my esc isn't quite the Alt-f4 i need it to be.
Have you noticed how cravings come and go like the passing of seasons? When you're right out there you feel the season in full force, with the thought in your mind: "yeah.. its a cold winter alright" or "oh my god i need to finish this bag of chips", and it changes slowly, without you realising that you stopped eating chips, or that you started craving chocolate, just as this hot/cold winter eases into a dubious spring.
And then theres the craving reversal. One moment you want ice-cream, and the next moment you can't get enough of non-dairy. Or you even reject ice cream (this rarely happens to me, but it does). Like how one moment something doesn't quite matter, and the next thing you know, you'd die to have it, and vice versa.
So why do we crave?
Could it be the perceived lack of something that makes us want it? A perceived lack of endorphins that makes us crave chocolate? A perceived lack of muscle relaxation that makes us crave a back rub? A perceived lack of results that makes us crave tuition? (btw if you didn't think the last statement was a weak joke you need counselling)
Maybe its the groove. I need beer because its tiger time. I need dota cos its competition time. I need chess because i feel intellectual.
It could be peer pressure. I watch a movie because everyone says its good. I learn to appreciate new things like American Football which i used to have no interest in. I study becaue everyone else is (this rarely happens).
Perhaps its brain chemicals induced by the environment. The aroma from starbucks makes me want a coffee. The cool wind makes me want to chew mint gum. The bad smell in the toilet makes me want to crap.
But if not any of these, then what?
Heep once said something like: You know how when its something you can't get, its fascinating, but when its something easy, it doesn't appeal to you.
I think he's nuts.
I don't crave chocolate because i can't get it. It still tastes wonderful, the first piece more then the next (obeying the law of Marginal Utility). I don't drink beer because i'm underaged. I don't crap because i smell the toilet. I crap if i have to.
My theory is that cravings of all sorts arise from a condition of dependency on a pillar of emotional support. If this pillar were to shake or crumble, this triggers a surge in craving for various substances, activities, or objects that will create a temporal relief from the emotional trauma sustained by the pillar, either by inducing happiness, euphoria, or sheer avoidance of thinking (about the incident that caused trauma). Eg. my craving for chocolate could be attributable to my self-perceived worthlessness triggered by a friend saying: "go away" because the "go away" shook an emotional pillar called "self-love" that resulted in anxiety of inadequacy, which led to the desire for endorphins in chocolate to put off those feelings of insecurity by replacing these with happy feelings. (which could explain why Master Pain renames himself Betty in Kung Pao: Enter the Fist)
And if you don't crave?
I think that leads to a breakdown of sorts, when all "escape mechanisms" fail to create a temporal shield around depressive feelings of anxiety and negativity.
I'm glad my escapes are within easy reach. Except that of late my esc isn't quite the Alt-f4 i need it to be.
posted by Kinfoong at 10:00 PM
2 Comments:
you know what they say: you can't draw a compass without a north-point. that you're so easily influenced betrays your lack of rootedness.
and as evinced by your writing, perhaps the causality of your ennui, your flippancy, your moments of mania and depression, as everyday as they may seem, betrays the lack/loss of personal identity from which to draw a compelling reason, a purpose, for life and therefore, consummate happiness.
I agree with anonymous.. I get mood swings which affect the ppl around me and then they give me tt look.. lack of personal identity? perhaps? but i dun get cravings. my frens say i'm weird, i see them having cravings all the time but its foreign to me.
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