I’ve been thinking about Anthony Bourdain and Charles Bukowski lately. Not together, exactly. They never shared a meal, never drank at the same bar, never even existed in the same orbit as far as I know. But in my head, they’re sitting at opposite ends of the same long table, and I’m somewhere in the middle, trying to figure out what they’re both trying to tell me.
Bukowski taught me it was alright to be a mess. That you could write something true even if (especially if) it came from the gutter. That polish was optional, but honesty wasn’t. He didn’t want your admiration. He wanted you to look at the bits of yourself you’d been hiding and stop pretending they weren’t there.
Bourdain taught me something different, but weirdly similar. He taught me that being curious was a form of respect. That you could love something deeply, obsessively, without needing to own it or fix it or make it yours. That the world was full of people doing things better than you’d ever do them, and the right response wasn’t envy… it was awe. And maybe a bowl of noodles.
Together, they’ve given me a way of thinking about this whole thing. This life. This work. This refusal to do it the way we’re told we’re supposed to.
The Hunger Problem
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to: most of the advice we get is about satisfaction. About achieving, arriving, optimising, and completing. About getting to a place where you can finally exhale and say, “Right, I’ve done it.”
But Bourdain was never satisfied. He kept moving. Kept asking questions. Kept finding new places, new flavours, new people who knew things he didn’t. And it wasn’t restlessness in the anxious, broken sense. It was appetite. The good kind. The kind that keeps you alive.
Bukowski was similar, though he stayed put more. He had his typewriter, his cheap wine, his post office job that nearly killed him. But he kept writing. Kept looking at the world with those bloodshot eyes and finding something worth putting on the page. Not because he thought it’d make him rich or famous (though it did, eventually), but because the alternative was worse. The alternative was silence.
I think that’s what I’m trying to protect in myself. That hunger. That refusal to be done.
Because the world wants you done, doesn’t it? It wants you settled. It wants you to pick a lane, optimise your workflow, build your personal brand, and then coast on momentum until you’re too tired to notice you stopped caring years ago.
Fuck that.
What It Actually Looks Like
I’ll tell you what it looks like for me, and you can decide if it resonates or if I’ve lost the plot entirely.
It looks like working hard on something that matters, then walking away at 3pm to sit in the sun with a book that has nothing to do with productivity. It looks like caring deeply about craft… about doing the work well, about not half-arsing it… but also knowing that “well” doesn’t mean “perfectly” and it definitely doesn’t mean “safe.”
It looks like writing something honest even when (especially when) it’d be easier to write something clever. It looks like saying no to things that’d make me money but make me feel dead inside. It looks like saying yes to things that scare me a bit, because if I’m not scared, I’m not learning, and if I’m not learning, what’s the bloody point?
It looks like respecting people who know more than me. Who’ve done the hours. Who’ve put in the time to get good at something I’ll never be good at. Bourdain got that. He’d sit with a street vendor in Vietnam and treat them like the master they were. Not as content. Not as an experience to collect. But as someone who knew something true.
And it looks like being willing to admit when it’s hard. When I don’t have the answers. When I’m making it up as I go. Bukowski got that. He wasn’t out here pretending he had his life together. He had his typewriter and his habits and his small, persistent defiance against everything that wanted him to quit.
The Bit No One Talks About
Here’s the bit that doesn’t make it into the Instagram captions or the LinkedIn think pieces: it’s lonely sometimes.
Not in a tragic, romantic way. Just in the way that anything real is lonely. Because most people aren’t doing this. Most people took the safe route, the sensible route, the route that their parents understood. And good for them, genuinely. But it means you end up in conversations where you’re nodding along while thinking, “I don’t know how to explain that I’d rather be poor and awake than comfortable and numb.”
Bourdain knew this. You can see it in his shows. The way he’d find his people… the chefs, the fixers, the locals who got it. The ones who cared about something enough to make it their life’s work, even when it made no financial sense.
Bukowski knew it too. He wrote for decades before anyone gave a shit. He kept going because the alternative was unbearable. Not because he was special or chosen or blessed with some magical resilience. Just because stopping would’ve killed him faster than the drinking.
And maybe that’s the test, isn’t it? If you can stop, you probably should. If you can take the easier path without feeling like you’re dying inside, then for god’s sake, take it. But if you can’t… if there’s something in you that won’t let you settle… then you’re stuck with the rest of us. The hungry ones. The ones who’d rather be tired from doing the thing than tired from pretending we don’t need to.
What I’m Trying to Say
I’m not trying to romanticise struggle. I’m not saying you need to suffer to make good work or live a good life. That’s bollocks, and it’s the kind of bollocks that keeps people stuck in situations that are actually just harmful.
What I’m saying is: there’s a difference between the discomfort of growth and the discomfort of dying slowly. There’s a difference between being challenged and being crushed. And somewhere in that difference is where Bourdain and Bukowski meet.
They both chose aliveness. Messy, uncomfortable, uncertain aliveness. They both refused to pretend. They both kept moving, kept working, kept looking for the next true thing.
And they both paid for it, in different ways. I’m not naive about that. But they also lived. Properly lived. In a way that most people don’t.
So that’s what I’m chasing, I suppose. Not success in the clean, applause-worthy sense. Not the version of my life that looks good in a LinkedIn bio. But the version where I’m still hungry at 60. Still curious. Still willing to admit I don’t have it figured out. Still finding new flavours, new words, new ways of looking at the same old things.
Still here. Still doing the work. Still refusing to be done.
Because the alternative is worse.
And if you’re reading this and nodding along, if you’re feeling that same low-grade refusal to settle for the sanitised version of success we’re sold… then you’re one of us. The hungry ones. The ones who’d rather taste something real than swallow something safe.
Welcome to the table.
There’s always room for one more.
Until Next Time
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