self-imposed lack

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I just finished my yearly seven day fast again. But why would one choose to do this? It is not "fun," nor is it easy. Although, as with many things, it gets easier the more you do it. For me, fasting is a clear case of making an offering—the effort made to not eat—to gain something else: a return to health, and more. I find the benefits of fasting exciting, but I will not talk about it here.

Long ago, our environment or our lifestyle pressed fasting upon us. We had no choice but to fast; it was a natural consequence of the context we lived in. It would have taken great effort not to fast in that situation.

Now, it is a different matter. Now, our world is so rich and so abundant that we must, on our own behalf, remove ourselves from that richness. There is no external factor—no religion or circumstances—that guides or forces us into it. We must do it ourselves. We are so free now that our circumstances no longer guides us toward the very things that have helped make us healthy organisms for a long time. The guidance is gone, the environment is no longer imposing these kinds of challenges. The side wheels are off the bike. The external is no longer helping us by imposing it. We must, from within ourselves, find away to make the balance. We decide ourselves, by understanding, by knowledge, to press these limitations or challenges upon us.

These lean periods of the past—where circumstance dictated you eat less or nothing—made the act of fasting trivial. These absences of comfort and abundance are the very things that helped form us. I am not just talking about food, but the lack of all comfort. Our bone density, skeletal formation, teeth alignment, and even our cognitive capabilities were sculpted by effort and lack.

Most of this is about the effort of doing something hard. Yet, "hard" is relative. If things are simply the way they are, there is no complaining or longing for something else. The caveman did not long for an electric scooter so he wouldn't have to walk. He simply put in the physical effort on a daily basis, and that effort was normal. It was this "normal" that formed his strong and developed body.

There is a variety of hardships we can get used to through practice until they feel normal once again. They cease to be a challenge. But now, those nudges and guides into lack and challenge are gone. The hardships that shaped us into something healthy—just as wild animals are healthy—have vanished. For us, the consequences are showing through an ever-expanding list of miss-alignment and deterioration.

Moving the spectrum

When I fast i move across a spectrum defined by a fed and a unfed state on each end.

To find the will to step out of one's comfort. To step on the brake of our habits, to stop, to even go the other direction. To expose ourselves to the other end of the spectrum:

When you fast you move on a spectrum, from a "fed" to an "unfed" state. Maybe it is that very movement itself that is what makes you healthy. No longer you are being stagnant on one side of a spectrum. I am not to talk about the benefits of fasting, but to invite you to move across the many spectrums in your life. Because it will make you more capable. Because We needs more of you. Because it most likely will bring you more.

When you fast.
It is important to inform yourself. There are things to keep in mind to fast safely, especially when fasting for multiple days.

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