Who Cares?

- Impromptu | Intermezzo -

As usual, I’m writing this on a Tuesday.

What's unusual is it's my first time writing in a fasted state.

It’s been a while since I’ve given myself nothing to eat (nearly 72 hours, only coffee and water). I used to do this quite a bit, before realizing I was doing it too much and making myself fragile.

So it's been a long, long time since I've done this, yet it hasn't been hard. When I say it hasn't been hard, that's not to say it's been easy–only that it's familiar.

There’s the fatigue, which reminds you of how connected the mind is to the body. The strange sensation of going to bed on an empty stomach. The imaginary meals that continually perpetuate your thoughts.

But once you get past this, the benefits more than make up for it: the glowing skin, flatter stomach, sharper focus.

The most obvious one:

Time.

There's so much more of it when you have no dishes to wash, food to prepare, toilets to sit on.

For me, the biggest test was what to do with all that free time. I failed this test before, so I had some anxiety about it. I was even more afraid to fail again, since, lately, so much of my self-conversation has centered around what I would do with all that free time.

I read.

And read. And read.

I'm still reading.

It feels so damn good.

I thought this would surprise me but it didn't. It was like I already knew I had become a person who does the things he talks about.

Strangely, I don’t even feel proud about it. My only thought is, But of course. This is what someone like me does.

And I find it's easier to be that someone when I know what it feels like to be hungry.

Hunger reminds me what I don't want, what I don't believe, what I don't need.

I don't want to work hard just for the sake of it.

I don't believe this makes me lazy.

I don't need much.

Less.

I need very little.

I believe that little is more than enough.

I want my life to feel longer than it actually is.

I was planning on waiting until tomorrow night to eat, when I pick my wife up at the airport. I wanted to time her first meal back in the country with my first one in days.

But I don't feel bad about changing my mind any more.

I’m going to eat sooner than I thought I would.

She wouldn't care, and neither do I.