Where there is intense hardship, philosophy withers.

 Where there is intense hardship, philosophy withers; after all, why ponder the nature of existence when survival itself is uncertain? A person on the verge of starving to death thinks only of immediate needs—food, shelter, rest, and so on—as is natural. They do not contemplate the nature of the food they’ve found, the process by which it came to be, or whether their attraction to it stems from their own will. They simply eat it. For such a person, questions like "Why do I eat?" or "Am I eating by my own will?" are not merely luxuries; they are irrelevant.