Indulging my more ascetic desires.

[lhexa]

I'm recently back from a sixty-something hour fast. While it was interesting observing my intelligence fade away, and my emotions subside to an obeisance to habit interspersed with moments of mania, it doesn't compare with laying in bed several hours after finally eating and marvelling as beautiful prose starts to fill my head again. It is enough to make me realize that I am as often to be found on a variety of fast during those times when I am eating regularly. The first meal after a long fast is always one of the best; previously I have fasted in part for the sake of that meal. However, I consider that now a bad reason.

I'm already thinking about the next time I remind myself that I like food... the end of a term seems a good time for it. I'll try for eighty hours next time.

Comments

[guilen.livejournal.com]

Why, oh why would you do that?

GUILEN

[broken-bokken.livejournal.com]

Because people have an obsession with doing grotesquely unhealthy things to themselves. I mean, duh.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

It all depends on which grotesquely unhealthy thing a person prefers... and going without food for a few days three or four times per year simply doesn't compare with other things people do.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

I don't entirely know. Partly because after awhile I get so sick of satisfying an endlessly recurring appetite that I want to remind myself that I do control it, even if only to a small extent. Partly because it's an immense test of will and determination; the desire to cave in and end the fast never goes away. Partly because there are things that I feel while on a fast that I never feel otherwise (though like I said the usual state is one of listlessness). Are these reasons enough?

[guilen.livejournal.com]

they are interesting reasons, all of em, but there are some things - like an -80- hour fast, that I would really recommend against. You shouldn't have to prove to yourself that you can -hurt- yourself, do you know what I mean?

I guess I'm just so attached to food :)

GUILEN

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

I'm extending the time because I'm curious about just how long my body can go without food before anything really bad happens. After about thirty hours I hit the state of weariness I've been talking about, but it's never become worse than that during the time I've spent. As soon as I figure out what length of fast it takes for me to become unable to run up a flight of stairs (or, God forbid, to make me start fainting), I'll eat and never go without food for that long again.

You know, the previous two times I fasted I climbed fucking mountains halfway through. My only entries from August and September were about that. It really doesn't hurt as much as you'd think. *grins* When I really want to hurt myself, I read some Kant or Derrida...