“Hunger is the voice of a void. It is Nature demanding her rights. It is the restless insistent cry of an instinct, clamouring to be satisfied. There are four great hungers of life,—body-hunger, mind-hunger, heart-hunger and soul-hunger. They are all real; all need recognition; all need feeding.
The claim of a hungry body has right of way over all other needs. It requires no credentials, no argument, no advocate. It holds a first mortgage on the sympathy and aid of humanity. But the hunger for food while being most irrepressible, most immediately compelling, has no monopoly on the hungers of life. In the world today there are in reality more people starving for love than for bread. There is more heart-hunger than body-hunger—more unsatisfied yearning for sympathy, affection, companionship, kindness, and appreciation than for food.” ~ William George Jordan
Have you found that eating a dish you like typically tastes better when prepared by hands other than your own? Man is a gregarious animal with deep-rooted social compulsions that serve, in large measure, to drive him to fill the hungers of others round about. The four primary hungers we share were not meant to be filled primarily by self-service, instead, we are here to fill the needs of those beyond ourselves.
If everyone on earth is looking out exclusively for him or herself, “looking out for number one” as they say, then each person on earth would only have one person seeking to provide for his or her needs. If, on the other hand, everyone is caught up in the spirit of service, of satisfying the hungers of his fellows, then theoretically each one could benefit from hundreds if not thousands or millions of others looking after his or her needs.
“We have all these four hungers because we are human—because we are higher than the animals. These hungers are aspirations and were meant to be satisfied. They mean man’s true expression—not false repression. Life is a continuous battle for our hungers...
…Let us give others not merely what we have but what we are. Let us feed their higher hungers, not on set days and occasions, but in unbroken years of such days. Let us make this spirit—like a persistent, pervading perfume of inspiration—ever sweeten our own lives and those of others.” ~ William George Jordan
To feed others on this basis you have to be willing to come out of yourself. It is easy to bury your head in the sand of your personal aspirations and perceived needs, and to vet everything you encounter against the thought “what can this person do for me.” Such people are a dime a dozen in the world at large. The true need, however, is for those who are willing to step out of that box and dedicate their lives to the service of their fellows. You needn’t quit your job to do this, run away to some monastery in a remote place or withdraw from the world around you. In fact, the more engaged you are the more abundant your opportunities for service!
Think today how you might better satisfy the hunger of those around you, whether it be body-hunger, mind-hunger, heart-hunger or soul-hunger. Think especially of those with whom you typically have enmity, conflict or tension. Do the unexpected and give to them with absolutely no strings attached. My youngest son and I were discussing war this morning and he asked if soldiers in the olden days would take the horses of those whom they had vanquished in battle. I answered in the affirmative and he thought about it for the moment before coming up with this cute four year old thought: “Why didn’t they just trade horses before they started? Then they wouldn’t have to fight over them!”
An adult mind shaped by the influences of the world as it now is would likely dismiss the idea as being impractical, but as silly as it might be to us, I feel it’s worth giving some thought as to how such thinking might be put to practical use.
What say you? Better yet, what do you plan to do today to test this line of thought?
I would love to hear how it works out!
Gregory Hake 
Excellent and thought provoking, thanks!
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As it is with physical hunger, app hungers exist because of a misallocation of resources. All the resources are here to feed the entire world, they’re just locked up. We keep our love locked up, only to distribute it if the person meets our exact criteria. Furthermore, if we feel malnourished, the tendency is not to give what we do have unless our own needs are met first. Kind of an extreme survival mentality which clearly is not the case 99.9% of the time.
Here’s a grand instruction in the true magic of living! Release whatever your conditions, and just give of yourself knowing that this gift is the ticket to your own real fourfold dietary needs. When I think about, it cannot be another way – I don’t see any other way to solve our distribution crisis.
I know I will have lots of opportunities today to work with this; I’ll be able to exercise these ideas with my coworkers as we’re involved in some training right now. Keeping alert enough to notice is key for me because I can easily get wrapped up in thoughts about other stuff I’m also doing. G’day!
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LOVE THIS POST!!! It is as true today as it was in Jordan’s time that there are more people starving for love than bread. Many search the self-help/self-improvement sections because of their starvation for love without success. I can see that a fundamental reason for failure in true self-improvement is the lack of looking outside of oneself to nourish the right seeds in those around us. It is a low ceiling when we try to fill ourselves for ourselves, and it definitely is a wake up call for me when I hear Jordan’s words from a past era and see that the situation in the world today is even more full of starvation on all levels. I hear your call for practicality to manifest some actual improvement here! Let’s do it!
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I’ll bet if you think about your life, there is one spot that has the highest amount of one of these hungers, and is in the greatest need of help. This is the place where your leverage is the greatest, where an unassuming display of selflessness could be the difference between continuing down a current path or a sharp change in direction. The great thing about offering your help or service to others unconditionally is that you don’t have to worry about their reaction to it. At first they might think that you are fishing for a favor (or even that you’ve gone crazy!), but over a longer time period they will see that it is just how you operate, and that could really mean something.
A cynical person might ask what good one person being selfless would do, and the answer to that is that it doesn’t matter what cynical people think about your actions. To be selfless is to do the right thing no matter what the opposition.
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At first glance, to provide for the needs of others seems so simple, and in a sense it is. However, to do so effectively amd wisely may be another matter. Sometimes providing for someone’s actual needs can mean bypassing what they think they need. Some of the greatest blessings offered to people have been vilently rejected because they didn’t conform to the odd mixture of hunger and compulsion motivating the receiver. It has been said that you can’t please everybody, and that is a sad fact!
To give effectively to others requres a stable, balanced, secure person who has developed genuine empathy, the ability to perceive actual need in priority. Beyond that, however, there must be cultivated a central hunger for what is right, real and just. On this basis we give not just because we love others, although we certainly do, but because we love the spirit of giving and we understand deeply the way things work. This post highlights a little-understood but utterly vital aspect of the way things work. Many thanks!
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Love your son’s suggestion. Maybe a four year old can’t understand the complexities of our problems but he clearly understands there is more than one way to handle differences. A dialogue that is hungering to understand trumps a litany of fear filled selfishness. The first opens the passages for new ideas and a creative magic that people generate when they’re concerned about more than just their own needs; while the second cuts off all creativty leaving only the usual options of conciliation through conquest or surrender.
Thanks for your post.
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Feeding the hunger of the body is always an easy way to open the door to feed someone’s mind,heart and soul. Although I never see people as understanding their plight or issue entirely ( because I am not them) I do work to employ the power of empathy in any conscious effort of service I embark on for any of my brethren. Just like deciding what to cook for a meal to offer nourishment for a dinner to be served, I would likewise decide what to say or do to nourish in conversation or deed. All of this considered, to offer any of this is simple when applied to a friend, but when there is little or no invitation by personal issue or circumstance, to still offer a blessing to someone, that is the time when our courage is called on and our understanding for a greater purpose has to be recognized.
Thanks for the great post!!
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This gives new meaning to feed the hungry. It is a wonderful result when you walk away from someone who was down and leave them smiling. The key you mentioned is engaging, if we listen and take the time to look into someones eyes, it is easy to find where the need is within that individual. If we all try to leave the space we hold in each moment, better than we found it, the results of that pay it forward mentality, begun by one person, could transform the worlds of many. I will give specific attention to this quest, it’s a pleasure to give in this way. I believe this is the best anti- depressant medication on the market. Thanks!
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When Mother Teresa visited the USA her comment was about the poverty of loneliness she saw here. We were the most affluent country on earth and we still had this palpable loneliness. I don’t think that much has improved. I see the divides as even greater. It’s not the financial or ethnic differences it is the isolation of trying to be self sufficient not understaning the blessings inherent in interdependence. We need to have someone, other than just ourselves to give to. When I see my friends crippled by an “empty nest” then resuscitated by volunteering or engaging with activities that improve other’s lives, it gives me a renewed understanding for our hunger to give. That’s one of the reasons I think retirement, as it is structured in our country,is so dangerous to the health of our seniors.
Beautiful post today and truly “food” ( pun intended) for thought, thank you.
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As it is with physical hunger, app hungers exist because of a misallocation of resources. All the resources are here to feed the entire world, they’re just locked up. We keep our love locked up, only to distribute it if the person meets our exact criteria. Furthermore, if we feel malnourished, the tendency is not to give what we do have unless our own needs are met first. Kind of an extreme survival mentality which clearly is not the case 99.9% of the time.
Here’s a grand instruction in the true magic of living! Release whatever your conditions, and just give of yourself knowing that this gift is the ticket to your own real fourfold dietary needs. When I think about, it cannot be another way – I don’t see any other way to solve our distribution crisis.
I know I will have lots of opportunities today to work with this; I’ll be able to exercise these ideas with my coworkers as we’re involved in some training right now. Keeping alert enough to notice is key for me because I can easily get wrapped up in thoughts about other stuff I’m also doing. G’day!
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Here’s to true philanthropy!
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Great challenge!
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