Is it simply an accident that the “taste” we have in clothes or art or people or ideas has the same name as the “taste” we sense with our tongues? Is it by a stroke of genius that so many languages use the same word to reference our flavor as per our personal preferences? Maybe not. Our taste in food as per our taste in other aspects of our lives comes from the same one capacity we have as humans. Life as we know it—where, with whom and how we enjoy our life—all is shaped by taste.

Food, love, security. These are our core instinctual survival needs. They are so intricately intertwined that it would be impossible to consider one without the others. Yet how we crave or hunger for and feel satiated from these needs is what distinguishes us from all other animals.

We as humans do things because it’s the right thing to do, right? Well not when it comes to our cravings. Not with our need to feel satisfied. For these matters, we’re impulsive, we cheat, we give excuses, and we continue to crave, insatiably. 

Instinct might out of the question. Even when we are “satisfied” from a meal or a new purchase or an affair or a Netflix-binge session… whatever it may be, is it enough just then? Instinctively it should be. But after a satiable helping of a meal or a sweet, why is it I bitterly wish to continue eating, and thereafter dream of a repeat. Why is it never enough then and there?

Regarding our cravings for food, we typically eat for texture, appearance, color, and mood. We don’t eat raw slabs of meat or fish or freshly cut grass, as animals do. No, we need to plan and prepare and present our food. Properly. And when it’s not properly prepared, no matter how hungry we are or how much we still eat of it regardless, we often won’t feel satiated. That’s because we are creatures that crave. Our cravings are an actual and continued need for something.

But what? 

I wonder, at what point in human evolution did our taste for things turn to cravings and in many, addictions? Was it social media? Magazines, television, the internet, then Instagram? Before all this, before instant gratification, was (wo)man ever capable of being fully satiated?

Social media, online shopping, and digital entertainment have made it easier for people to indulge in instant pleasures, leading to challenges in moderation, restraint, self-control. Technology has made constant stimulation a norm. And achieving true satisfaction beyond our immediate desires has become a major thing with buzz terms like “mindfulness” and “self-awareness.” Lately we are having to constantly grapple with the paradox of craving fulfillment while striving for self-control and inner peace.

For some of us, there’s the notion that overindulgence in anything, from smoking, drinking, social media scrolling or insta-shopping, will somehow eventually teach us restraint due to the negative consequences of excess. But no. We continue to indulge and cheat according to our impulses and inclinations, not reason. 

Is real satiety—the inner spiritual kind—perhaps impossible? Are we all, though in a sort of strangely noble way, in a constant state of craving and cheating, incapable of ever being truly satiated? Whatever the case may be, when we apply reasonable limits or boundaries, it’s still a good life.