Fasting

After a weekend with houseguests marked by stuffing our faces with local Ligurian specialities and guzzling wine, I decided it was time for the purifying ritual of fasting.  In past years, it was a ritual that Doug and I practiced once every Spring, vegetating on the couch while watching old movies and drinking gallons of water and herbal infusions.

But seeing as how someone was going to have to keep up his strength enough to run after our two happy little critters, this time I was going to be all alone in undertaking this ancient technique.  The practice of fasting has its origins at the horizons of human history: for millennia, believers and ascetics have done it while meditating as a way to near themselves spiritually to God.

All I wanted was to eliminate the unwelcome lipids and toxins in circulation throughout my body after my carefree abuse of food.

Aside from having obvious physiological effects (headaches, tiredness, hourly visits to the toilet, and the illusion of losing weight by the minute), fasting is a good way to improve your patience and strengthen your resolve in the face of privation.

I’ve never been exactly superlative in either of these virtues, and while I have no aspirations of becoming an ascetic myself, I do think that working on one’s capacity for patience is well-worth the effort.

In our super-fast modern world, being patient  and doing nothing while waiting for something to happen is practically incomprehensible, especially for teenagers.  Every moment of the day is filled with the constant sharing of information via cybernetic means, and the over-stimulated brain absorbs millions of bits of data.

The resultant hunger for input translates itself into the need to satisfy any and every psycho-physical desire, and thanks to faster and faster technologies, the time that one must wait for gratification is measured in nanoseconds.

Meanwhile, in the early afternoon of my fast, lying on the couch in a comatose state whilst dreaming of pizza and focaccia, I considered how I myself had become victim to the concept that not eating for 24 hours was impossible.  In truth, I had enough extra pounds on me to last a long winter’s hibernation.

Patience is all in your head.  And after 24 hours of patient fasting, a bit of ancient wisdom appeared alongside my breakfast: to will it is to do it.

Learning to be patient and waiting for events to take their natural course will give us great strength in those moments when we really need it.