The Hierarchy of Hunger
These Eyes Know Nothing but Love
Sophia: Friends, let us ponder the nature of love and existence. Anthony, you once said, “Don’t let love interfere with your appetite. It never does with mine.” How do you reconcile affection with the practical demands of life?
Trollope: Sophia, love is abundant and does not compete with other needs. One may feel deeply and still savor life’s pleasures. Appetite — for food, for experience, for knowledge — need not be sacrificed for the heart. True love enhances, rather than diminishes, our engagement with the world.
Don't let love interfere with your appetite. It never does with mine.
— Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)
Heidegger: Yet Sophia, love cannot be separated from the deeper question of Being. Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing? Love awakens us to existence itself; it makes beings present, significant, and precious precisely because they exist in the face of Nothing.
Sophia: So love is both nourishment and revelation. It sustains the body, as Anthony notes, but it also illuminates existence, as Heidegger suggests. In loving, we affirm life against the void.
Trollope: Indeed. One can taste and enjoy the world, and in doing so, celebrate those whom we love. Appetite and affection are intertwined expressions of vitality.
Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing?
— Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
Heidegger: And yet, Sophia, to love is to confront Being authentically. It is to recognize finitude, to cherish existence while knowing that it is neither necessary nor guaranteed. Love makes the fleeting precious.
Sophia: Then the lesson is this: Love does not detract from life — it magnifies it. It engages both body and soul, pleasure and awareness, grounding us in the tangible while connecting us to the mystery of existence.
Trollope: A life with appetite and affection is a life fully lived.
Heidegger: And a life with love is a life attuned to Being itself.
Sophia: Together, then, they teach us that eyes that truly see love also see the wonder of being, and hearts that embrace existence savor every fleeting, precious moment.
They sit in a sunlit courtyard, tasting wine, observing birds, and watching the world pulse around them — each moment an affirmation of love and existence.
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