Can't Get Satisfied?

     I’m testing a theory here: the first chocolate chip cookie is delicious, the second is not as good, the third - I won’t even go there.     
     Ever notice that’s true about anything we take in with our senses? The first taste, touch smell, sight, or sound are great. Then those sensations either fade or gag us. Which is why Annie Dillard’s conviction makes sense, that relying on my senses to satisfy me “requires more and more” because “the life of sensation is the life of greed.”     
     Economists call this the law of diminishing marginal utility - a mouthful to say that at a certain point, the more we have of something, the less we enjoy it.
     I’ve noticed this, too, when acquiring stuff. I work hard to get something, then after a while it doesn’t thrill as I thought it would. So I’m disappointed and seek something else. Which reminds me of a “New Yorker” cartoon about two women. One admits to the other: “I got what I wanted, but it’s not what I wanted.”     
     So how do we get satisfied? In “The Writing Life,” Dillard says we must look to “the life of the spirit.”     
     For me, that means feeding my soul - my whole being - not simply my senses. It’s breathing deeply of God’s love.     
     Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still indulge in a chocolate chip cookie. But to be truly satisfied, I need “soul” food.