"The perpetual hunger to be beautiful and that thirst to be loved, which is the real curse of Eve." - Jean Rhys.
Jean Rhys is one of those writers who can construct a sentence that will make you question your entire existence.
This is one of them.
Eve, the first woman, was punished with the responsibility of human suffering because she was not the perfect creation God wanted her to be. She who dared to be curious and defy the orders of a man was sentenced to a lifetime of repenting.
This seems to be a condition of being a woman.
We have been taught, through the punishment of our mother, to possess a perpetual hunger to please, whether that be with our appearance or our obedience.
We gag and bury our authentic selves so that we appear more tolerable and easy to swallow.
We carve our bodies and faces with sharp knives and drive ourselves into the ground just to be deemed 'beautiful' by everyone else.
But no matter how hard we try, this perpetual hunger is never satisfied.
Therefore, the only way to rid yourself of it is to ignore it.
Bite the apple if you want because paradise is an illusion anyway.