Stomach is a bottomless pit.
God has given us not only mouth and stomach but also has endowed is
with manifold appetites or desires making up the pit bottomless, so that it is
like a valley or sea that can never be filled.
The consequence is that we labour in life with all the energy of the
other organs, in order to supply inadequately the needs of these two.
Confucius reduced the great desires of human beings to two,
alimentation and reproduction, or in simple terms, food & drink and
women. Many men have circumvented sex,
but no saint has yet circumvented food and drink.
Friends that meet at meals, meet at place. A good bride’s delicious
meal has the tendency to assuage the heat of our arguments and tone down the
harshness of our conflicting point of view.
Put two of the best friends together when they are hungry, and they will
invariably end up in a quarrel. The
effect of a good meal lasts not only a few hours, but for weeks and
months. We rather hesitate to review
unfavorably a book written by somebody who have us a good dinner three or four
months ago.
All quarrels and disputes are settled at dinner table, instead of at
the court.
We bribe our way into good will of everybody by frequent
dinners. It is, in fact the only safe
guide to success in politics. Should
someone take the trouble of compiling figures, he will find a correlation
between like number of dinners a man gives to his friends and the rate or speed
of his official promotion.
So basically, influenced are we by this
matter of food and drink that revolutions, peace, war, patriotism,
international understanding, our daily life and the whole fabric of human
social life are profoundly influenced by it.
What was the cause of French Revolution?
Rousseau and Voltaire and Detroit?
No, just food. What is the cause
of Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment ? Just food again. As for war, Napoleon showed the essential
depth of wisdom by saying that “an army fights on its stomach.”
What is the use of saying peace, peace, when there is no peace below
the diaphragm? This applies to nations as well as individuals. Empties have collapsed and the most powerful
regimes and reigns of terror have broken down when the people were hungry.
Men refuse to work, soldier refuse to fight, prima donna refuse to
sing, senators refuse to debate and even presidents refuse to rule when they
are hungry.
Wives have complained that husband don’t notice their new dresses,
new shoes, new eyebrows, or new covers for chairs. But have wives ever complained that husbands
don’t notice a good steak or a good Omelet?
A well filled stomach is indeed a great thing; all else is luxury.
There is a closer relation between food and temperament. All herbivorous animals are peaceful by
nature; the lamb, the horse, the cow, the elephant, the sparrow, etc. All carnivorous animals are fighter; the
lion, the tiger, the hawk etc. Nature
does not produce a pugnacious temperament where no fighting is needed. Cock still fight with each other, but they
fight not about food, but about women.
I do not know about monkeys eating monkeys but I do know about them
eating men, cannibalism. It is therefore
any wonder that we are still eating each other in more senses that one,
individually, socially and internationally?
The difference between cannibals and civilized men seems to be that
cannibals kill their enemies and eat them.
Put a cross over their bodies and offer up prayers for their souls. Thus we add stupidity to conceit and a bad
temper.
In the present generation of men, both carnivorous and herbivorous
are present. Those who have a sweet
temper and those who have not. The
herbivorous men go their way through life minding their own business, while the
carnivorous men make their living by minding that of others.
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