Hungry For MORE

Desire without shame, eros without apology, and the end of being “enough” – why yearning isn’t greed, and contentment isn’t always holy

“The Dream” (1910) by Henri Rousseau - this surreal scene of a woman amidst a jungle dreamscape evokes the wild, untamed aspects of desire and the subconscious yearnings discussed in my essay. (photo: wikiart.org)

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They told me to be content. I told them I was still alive.

That’s not a poetic quip, it’s a declaration of war. Because today’s culture disguises its control mechanisms as spiritual advice, contentment is often prescribed like a sedative, especially to women. We are taught to shrink our appetites, not just our waistlines. To say “thank you” for crumbs. To mistake compliance for maturity. Wanting more – more touch, more beauty, more recognition, more space, more passion – is treated not as evidence of consciousness, but as an inconvenience, even a pathology. But there is a dignity in yearning, a sacred unrest that refuses to settle for survival. Wanting is not greed. It is a way of staying awake.

This age fetishises minimalism like it’s a secular gospel. “Simplify”, they chant. Curate your furniture, your emotions, your digital presence. Cut carbs, cut friends, cut desire. The goal is to be manageable… to yourself and to others. But what if this curation is just a prettier name for suppression? What if gratitude, when weaponised, becomes a leash disguised as a virtue? There is a fine line between thankfulness and sedation. And women are often sedated with compliments: “You have so much already”, “You’re lucky”, “Others have it worse”. Yes, they do. And? Since when did another’s misfortune become the ceiling of our longing?

When I was younger, I used to pray – not to want less, but to be punished less for it. I wasn’t one of those girls who needed to be told she was beautiful; men looked at me like I was a walking hallucination. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I still wanted more. More than being looked at, I wanted to be seen. Not admired – understood. Not possessed – met. I didn’t want to be a masterpiece hung on a wall; I wanted to be the artist, brush in hand, covered in paint and consequence. But wanting more made me a villain, an ingrate, a woman too full of herself, too dangerous to keep around.

I remember being at a dinner party once, talking about an idea I had for a book that blended mythology, sexuality, and politics. A man, an otherwise intelligent one, smiled condescendingly and said, “But haven’t you already done enough?” Enough for what? For who? My life is not a PR campaign. My soul is not a quarterly report. The question isn’t whether I’ve done enough. The question is whether I’m still burning. Whether the flame inside me has been reduced to a decorative candle or if it’s still capable of catching something – anything – on fire. That’s what wanting more means to me. It’s not about acquisition. It’s about ignition.

We tend to classify yearning as a symptom of lack. But what if it’s a symptom of abundance? A kind of surplus energy the soul produces when it’s still connected to something primal. The erotic in the broadest, most Platonic sense: that metaphysical ache for the beautiful, the meaningful, the ecstatic. And yet, women are taught to mistrust this fire. We are told that to want too much – of sex, of love, of life – is to risk collapse. We’re taught to be satisfied with being “enough”. But what if I don’t want to be enough? What if I want to be too much? What if I want the kind of life that demands new definitions?

And yes, let’s talk about eroticism. Not the marketed kind with lingerie and hashtags. I mean the real, feral eros – the hunger that makes you question everything. I remember a period in my life when I was entangled with a man I couldn’t have. Not because he was cruel or unavailable in the cliché sense, but because he was married. I told myself I was in control, that I could channel the longing into poetry or private fantasies. And I did. Until one day, something shifted. I wanted him, yes, but I wanted myself more. Wanted the woman I was becoming, and the dignity of not standing in someone else’s shadows. So I ended it. Not because the fire went out, but because it finally lit the right thing: me.

There’s a kind of female ambition that still makes people visibly uncomfortable. It’s not the boardroom kind, they have made peace with that, so long as it stays in a blazer. I’m talking about embodied ambition. The woman who wants to live in full colour, to be visibly desired, to have her voice echo across spaces not built for her. That ambition is still interpreted as delusion. As vulgarity. As a threat. But it is none of those things. It is the birthright of the fully alive. It is the unedited, unapologetic, unquiet pulse that says, “There is more in me, and I’m not afraid of it anymore”.

Men, too, are starved for permission to want more, though their starvation wears a different mask. They are allowed to be ambitious, but not to ache. They can want money, power, and sex, but not intimacy, awe, or tenderness without being branded soft or broken. I know men who have confessed, in half-drunk whispers or quiet hotel mornings, that they envy women’s permission to want beauty without shame. That they, too, want poetry, want to be held, want to be seen in their hungers without having to armour it in conquest. But the script for masculinity is strict. Yearning is allowed only if it’s camouflaged in productivity. It’s a prison dressed up in pragmatism.

“Starry Night” (1889) by Vincent van Gogh - the swirling skies and emotional intensity reflect the inner turbulence and the relentless pursuit of more that my essay champions. (photo: mom.org)

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I’ve never trusted people who tell me they are perfectly content. Not because I think they are lying (though many are), but because contentment often sounds too much like resignation. The truth is, there is nothing inherently noble about settling. Sometimes contentment is earned after a long fight. And sometimes it’s just fear wearing monk’s robes. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in peace. But peace that arrives after a storm, not the kind that’s handed to you like a sedative when your questions get too loud. Don’t hand me mindfulness like a muzzle. I’ll take the chaos, the ache, that ache that reminds me I’m still in motion.

There’s an entire cultural industry dedicated to shaming desire. But only certain kinds.

Want to be thinner, richer, more organised? Go ahead, manifest!

Want to be loved wildly, fucked gloriously, known deeply? Whoa, calm down!

It’s strange how capitalism encourages consumerist craving but punishes emotional or erotic appetite. There’s no “manifest your soul-shaking orgasm” journal in the checkout aisle. No corporate slogan telling women, “It’s okay to want more than being useful”. The market wants you to buy things, not to become someone they can’t control.

And what about envy? That much-maligned, misused emotion. I’m not afraid of it anymore. I think of it as a compass. When I feel that sting, when someone else is living or loving or writing in a way that awakens a kind of rage, I don’t shame myself. I listen. Envy tells me where my longing lives. It points to the place where I’ve gone numb. If I envy someone’s freedom, it means I’ve shackled myself somewhere. If I envy someone’s success, it means I’ve let something inside me go unfed. Envy is not always a sin, it’s a flare in the dark.

I once envied a friend not for her beauty or fame, but for the way she spoke about her life. She had the audacity to say she wanted more at sixty-five than she did at twenty. She wasn’t ashamed of her desires, she dressed them in silk and red lipstick. She didn’t apologise for her ambition; she wore it like perfume. I envied that freedom until I realised it was contagious. So I inhaled!

Wanting more doesn’t mean you are broken. It means you are still burning. Still here. Still capable of being moved. Yes, contentment has its place. But so does hunger. So does restlessness. The poets knew this. The mystics knew it too. That the soul expands through friction, through ache, through reaching. We grow not only through stillness but through longing. And the longing isn’t a failure. It’s a map.

So no, I will not be content, not in the way I’m expected to be. My gratitude is not a muzzle, and my desires are not disorders. I want more. Of art, of ecstasy, of intimacy that doesn’t leave parts of me behind. Not because I’m greedy, but because I’m still alive. And if you’ve made peace with the soft death of lowered expectations, I won’t judge you. But don’t ask me to join you there. I’m not done burning.

With hunger, not shame, from the restless side of grace, still dancing with the ache, unshrunk, unquiet, and still reaching,

Tamara

“Flaming June” (1895) by Frederic Leighton - the languid pose and vibrant hues encapsulate sensuality and introspection, mirroring my essay’s themes of eroticism and self-awareness. (photo: artvee.com)

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