Why do I finish eating and not remember eating?

One day a neighbor came to me, patting his belly, saying, 'Hodja, I ate, but I did not eat.' I said, 'Which is it, one or the other?' He said, 'Both — my body is full, my mouth is empty.' This is you and your dinner plate, most nights. The food arrives. Something else arrives with it — a screen, a worry, a meeting replaying in your head. The fork moves. The plate empties. But no one was home in the mouth. This is not a character flaw. It is a room with two doors open at once, and you walked out the wrong one without noticing. Here is the honest part: eating alone rarely fixes this, because alone is exactly when the second door is easiest to open. But eating WITH people who are also trying to taste again — that changes the room. Someone else's slowness slows you. Someone else's noticing makes noticing easier. This is a skill best relearned in company.