HUNGER ROAD
There’s a great song written and recorded by Robert Mitchum called “Thunder Road”. Yes, I know, there’s another with the same title by Bruce Springsteen. But, I’m going back a little farther. 1958! Mitchum starred in the film, playing a veteran who returns from the war in Korea to help run the family’s illegal booze business. A fast driving moonshine runner he’s lawless but with high moral fiber! Committed to doing the right thing. Even if doing it might land him in jail.
He was one of my all time favorites. Probably as well known for his lifestyle and reputation as a hard drinking, ladies man as he was for his films, I wanted to be just like him when I grew up.
For a while I thought I’d pulled it off. With the distorted viewpoint of daily substance abuse and an inflated ego, riding shotgun you tend to see what you want to see. Eventually the truth kicked my butt, woke me up and started me on a road to authentic Paulie. Authenticity has worked better for me than thunder.
The truth is I think many of us love the excitement of thunder and lightning. I love characters and people with an edge. A little danger sometimes makes me appreciate nice so much more. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll take all the nice I can get. But a razor wit keeps it interesting. My cats are masters at that. I love the purr but it’s the occasional snarl that adds wide awake to our mornings.
Do we romanticize danger? Is there a part of us that just loves the way all that fight or flight adrenaline feels? Maybe. There’ve been volumes written about how many of us will walk into a room full of strangers and immediately are attracted to the person who’ is guaranteed to be trouble. Love at first sight with the person you’re most likely to have a restraining order issued against!
What’s going on? Why do we keep piling things on our plate that are bad for us? Are we truly thrilled to be traveling down that dangerous highway? Down Thunder Road? What motivates us? What’s the hidden emotional need we’re not seeing?
I’ve certainly thought about it through the years. I think the headwaters of the emotion may be in different places for all of us. But, I think the path most of us are led to is born of more than simple desire. It’s a path we return to out of deep and unrecognized longing.
That’s the great, unsatisfied need that keeps us chugging along on our search for alternative emotional relief. And a path used often enough becomes a trail and a trail a lane and a lane a highway. The same behavior will keep us rolling along downhill until we become daily commuters on – you got it!
Hunger Road.
B movie Hollywood would have a ball creating the poster. Because I’m a songwriter there are things that sometimes jump into my head in rhyme.
Just a fool when I was younger
Giving in to every hunger
Always one more episode
Craving lives on Hunger Road
So Hunger Road might make be a pretty good title for a movie about some big hunks of my life. And, if you have issues with food, relationships, sex, drugs or booze, the list goes on and on. And everybody seems to have a little something they’re working on. Hunger Road might be a route you’re familiar with too. I’ll resist the urge to do a clever turn with the phrase “Pot-holes.”
Hunger Road can be the path of least resistance to dysfunction and personal damage. It’s a long and winding landscape of donut shops and liquor stores and titty bars and casinos
Now, before I start sounding like a revival preacher I want to make one thing clear. There are millions of healthy people who can dabble at things that are righteously dangerous for others. I’m a great admirer of the female form though I’ve never had a lap dance. At least not one that I remember.
Hunger Road. The deep longing for too much of anything probably sprang to life out of fear or loss. If you’re reading this and thinking, I need to lose twenty pounds but I’m not afraid of anything. I won’t argue with you. But, I’d ask you to consider this. As you sit down to a large chocolate sundae, or that extra order of chili cheese fries, ask yourself what you were feeling right before you ordered the food. As Tracey says, it’s those dateless Friday nights that seem to find so many hooking up with a quart of Ben & Jerry’s.
The world is out having fun. I’m alone. I’ll never have a decent relationship may be the unheard message being broadcast to your unconscious. The sub-title that’s apparent to the conscious you is, “I’m hungry. I want something sweet.”
We all want something sweet or someone sweet. Perhaps we’ll all have a better chance of experiencing life tastier moments if we stop before we act and ask ourselves one question. “Do I really want this? Or do I need to do what I’m about to do? What am I feeling? What’s behind the hunger? When we work at identifying the real issues and isolate the source of our painful need we have a much better chance of repairing the initial wound and not creating more problems with a destructive Band-Aid.
The choice really is ours. A little work can get us on the path to a healthier life and help us get the hell off Hunger Road.
Paul Williams is a singer, songwriter, actor, recovery advocate and has been a fixture on the American cultural scene since the seventies. His book Gratitude and Trust is now available.