You burn with hunger for food that does not exist.

The line evokes a paradox of desire: an intense, bodily craving (“burn with hunger”) directed at something that cannot actually satisfy because it is unreal, unavailable, or conceptually incoherent (“food that does not exist”). In Wallace’s typical moral-psychological register, it suggests the modern condition of appetites trained on abstractions—status, entertainment, perfection, total certainty, or a fantasy of permanent comfort—so that the self experiences real pain while pursuing an object that cannot be obtained. The image also implies self-perpetuating dissatisfaction: when the sought “food” is nonexistent, the hunger can only intensify, turning desire into a kind of torment rather than a guide toward nourishment.