Appetite渴望

By Laurie Lee

One of the major pleasures in life is appetite, and one of our major duties should be to preserve it.

Appetite is the keenness of living; it is one of the senses that tell you that you are still curious to exist, that you still have an edge on your longings and want to bite into the world and taste its multitudinous flavors and juices.

By appetite, of course, I don’t mean just the lust for food, but any condition of unsatisfied desire, any burning in the blood that proves you want more than you’ve got, and that you haven’t yet used up your life.

Wilde said he felt sorry for those who never got their heart’s desire, but sorrier still for those who did.

Appetite, to me, is this state of wanting, which keeps one’s expectations alive.

In wanting a peach, or a whisky, or a particular texture or sound, or to be with a particular friend.

For in this condition, of course, I know that the object of desire is always at its most flawlessly perfect.

Which is why I would carry the preservation of appetite to the extent of deliberate fasting, simply because I think that appetite is too good to lose, too precious to be bludgeoned into insensibility by satiation and over-doing it.

Fasting is an act of homage to the majesty of appetite. So I think we should arrange to give up our pleasures regularly—our food, our friends, our lovers—in order to preserve their intensity, and the moment of coming back to them. For this is the moment that renews and refreshes both oneself and the thing one loves. Sailors and travelers enjoyed this once, and so did hunters, I suppose. Part of the weariness of modern life may be that we live too much on top of each other, and are entertained and fed too regularly.

Too much of anything—too much music, entertainment, happy snacks, or time spent with one’s friends—creates a kind of impotence of living by which one can no longer hear, or taste, or see, or love, or remember. Life is short and precious, and appetite is one of its guardians, and loss of appetite is a sort of death.

So if we are to enjoy this short life we should respect the divinity of appetite, and keep it eager and not to much blunted.

渴望乃生活之一大乐事，而心怀渴望则成为一项重要的任务。

渴望意味着对生活充满热情，这种感觉表明你依然希冀生活，热衷梦想，向往探索世界，历尽世间百味百态。

当然，我所说的“渴望”不单指对食物的欲望，而指所有欲求未满的状态，及血液中燃烧的激情，这炽热的激情证明你希望收获更多，你的生命力并未耗尽。

王尔德曾说过，对未能梦想成真者，他深表惋惜;而对心愿已遂者，他则倍感遗憾。

对我来说，渴望就是这种想往的状态，它总是让人满怀期待。

因此，对我来说，渴望的最大乐趣之一在于心怀想往，而非心满意足，比如，想往一只密桃，一瓶威士忌，一块特质布料，或一种美妙的声音，亦或期望与朋友团聚。

因为，我知道在这种情况下，心中渴求之物总是完美无缺的。

怀着这种渴望，我特意安排了斋戒。原因很简单，我觉得渴望是极好的事，不能丧失，它弥足珍贵，不能饱食生腻，耗费过度使其沦为麻木无知之境。

禁欲是对欲望的神圣的一种膜拜。所以，我认为我们应该安排不时地放弃一些享乐之事—食物，朋友，爱人，这样的话我们才能保持我们对他们的浓烈感情，才能保留与他们重聚的那一刻。

因为，这一刻让我们自己和我们钟情之物都焕然一新，充满新鲜感。我想不管是水手，游客还是猎人都曾有过这种体会。或许现代生活的一部分令人厌倦之处就在于我们的生活太接近彼此了，我们的娱乐，我们的饮食都太有规律了。

任何一样东西—-音乐、娱乐、零食、与朋友在一起的时光---若是太多，就会形成一种无趣的生活，这种生活中，人们再也不能去听，去品尝，去看，去爱，去记忆。生命是如此短暂如此珍贵，而欲望就是它的一名守护者，失去欲望生命就近乎死亡。

因此，如果我们想要享受我们短暂的一生，我们就应该尊重欲望的神圣，让它保持热切程度不被磨钝。