Fasting Suffering School Style

Photo by manu schwendener on Unsplash

It happens every year in January—the part of my brain that talks to the other part of my brain starts to act up. It must be that cold and dark create the perfect environment for it to get louder and more talkative while the other part, the quiet part, goes almost completely silent. I am so used to it by now I barely notice the exact moment when the Talker moves in and takes over running the show, which isn’t a show, it’s more of a monologue, about me, how I make stupid mistakes, how I will never change.

And this year, like every year, I resigned myself to the narrative.

Things were going along as usual; the Talker was banging on about my past and setting up scenarios for the future that involved me suffering the consequences of my mistakes when suddenly it was broken by the sound of murmuring. The murmur was coming from a fellow student-- Special K (not her real name), floating the idea for a fast.

This is how it is done in Suffering School. Fasts are never broadcast publicly, they are spoken of quietly, in a murmur, because fasts, as we all know, are not for everyone and proposing one can be tricky.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame, says poet Gerard Manley Hopkins about something completely different but it can be applied to a fast and why it must be handled delicately, and why the person putting out the call assumes a code name. All done so as not to catch fire or draw flame.

Special K was calling for a classic fast from food which meant that it would not be for the following:

Those in Suffering School because of:

1) food related issues

2) physical issues

3) behavioral issues

Nor was fasting for:

1)Those who were too old

2)too young

3)too tired

4)too sad

5)too happy

6)too angry

Beyond that, the ability to discern which students to call to the fast and which to not requires a certain sensitivity—something we have as a natural result from hanging around with other students, learning from teachers, and of course our own suffering. Each student, in a matter of time, develops an acute awareness of the pain of others such that it becomes unthinkable to even consider violating the school’s strict honor code which can be summed up in one line: Don’t cause more suffering.

Thus, we listen when Emily Dickinson says:

It would have starved a Gnat—

To live so small as I—

And yet I was a living Child—

With Food’s necessity

Upon me—like a Claw—

I could no more remove

Than I could coax a Leech away

Or make a Dragon –move

To anyone calling a fast it is perfectly clear that Emily, small children, and those already living on gnat portions would never be called to these measures.

Another consideration for the person calling the fast is the staunch opposition of the faculty. They are vehemently against anything that adds suffering, especially if it’s self-imposed.

The other reason has to do with one of our school’s founding principles, something our teachers have always stressed—moderation. They stress it because they understand well the suffering that results from veering off into extremes. They would have us veer back to the middle where we belong.

Medio tutissimus ibis, warns Ovid, which means “you will be safest in the middle.” And then he wrote about what happened to Icarus, who didn’t stay in the middle, who instead flew with his homemade wings too close to the sun and sadly, the wax his father Daedalus used to glue the wings onto the magnificent structure that he made for the two of them to escape the island of Crete melted, and he saw with his own eyes his son plunge straight into the water. Brueghel, one of our art teachers, painted the scene showing just Icarus’s legs in view as he splashed down. To further the point, Auden, another teacher, wrote a poem about that terrible moment depicted in Brueghel’s painting:

How everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling from the sky,

Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

As you can see, our teachers love to pile on the examples, warning us at every turn about the dangers of extreme actions. But, wise as they are, we don’t always listen to them.

If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient, says the head of the Philosophy Department, Winnie the Pooh, it may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.( I wish I had a piece of fluff in my ear so I didn’t have to hear the Talker).

Of course, Winnie the Pooh is the most vocal opponent of student fasting. Even the sign above his office door speaks against it:

What could be more important than a little something to eat?

We totally agree with that sentiment but, still, we don’t listen.

I surprised myself by wanting to join the fast. I had never done anything like it before and did not know what to expect. But what surprised me even more was while I was mulling over whether to join or not, The Talker went quiet. It was as if it was struck dumb by the idea.

After a little time, it came back, but now with a new narrative about how dangerous fasting is, and how I was going to cause permanent damage to my body and brain if I fasted, or, conversely, how I was not going fast—because I couldn’t; I was too weak, and too mistaken thinking I could follow through on anything.

And, did I even know what I was signing up for?

I did not know.

Fortunately there would be a meeting for those interested. I went and listened as Special K outlined the conditions. She, like all fast originators, personally designed the program which was:

1) We start on the same day

2) We fast from food

3) We do not talk about the fast to non-participants

4) The length and duration of the fast is determined by each participant (for some, a few hours, for others a few days)

5) The fast is done for a private intention* that has been weighing us down

*The last point was what sold me on the this fast.

I would do it because my intention, my never-ending problem, was weighing on me.

A fast might help.

This is my question( it’s really one for the math teachers), and I do not know the answer, but— what would happen if I subtracted something I loved (food) and added something I didn’t love (fasting from food)?

How, if at all, would that affect heavy thing that I carried in my heart? I needed to find out.

At the meeting I looked around at the other interested students and could see we made a motley crew. Special K was prepared for that. She knew going in her fast would attract only “crazies” as she called us, because unlike most (normal) fasts, we were not doing it for health reasons. For us, healthy living, while always a net good, was not enough to get us locked in. Of course, if we received health benefits, wonderful, that can happen. But that was not why we were doing it.

We were doing it because we couldn’t not do it when asked. That is what attracted us. That and being crazy.

T.S. Eliot summed up the impulse perfectly--

The awful daring of a moment’s surrender

Which an age of prudence can never retract,

By this, and only this, we have existed.

There is in certain people a wild streak that expresses itself in moments. Mine came out at this moment. I listened to Special K, and listened to the Talker jeering at me, and said yes to the fast.

I can’t really say what transpired next. Even if I could talk about it, and violate the terms of the fast, there are hardly words to describe what happened after we left the meeting.

I know that when we agreed to do the fast we bonded, like brothers in arms, and promised each other that we would keep in contact throughout.

Which was good because on day one I walked right onto a battlefield. There was dust and smoke everywhere as shots were firing off all around me. I had a hard time seeing where they were coming from. I could eventually make out that most of them were coming from the Talkers, though it wasn’t just my Talker, it was a multitude of them speaking out of the mouths of the other fasters, my brothers in arms, and they were saying to them the same things my Talker would say to me:

You are weak

You are stupid

You will fail

I remember being surprised to see how generic they were. This made me bold. Normally, alone with my own Talker, I was meek and resigned, but here and now, in this battlefield with insults going off like bombs around me I became a warrior, chopping them down left and right, refuting them the moment they were audible with words of truth and encouragement. And the other fasters did the same for me. It became a game we all played together— knocking out Talkers, and we did it with glee.

After a few live action battles it got quiet and that is when the fasting got really hard, because I was no longer fighting out loud. The Talkers were bad enough, but when they go quiet, sometimes the real monsters come out.

In the silence I noticed that I was sad, because it is sad to not eat food, especially when you’re so used to it. I grieved for a time, but then a battle would erupt and I’d have to get back to fighting.

Due to the fog of war, I remember little else. I know a lot happened, that there were defining moments of fear, of grief and hunger (of course), and pain, when I thought about my intention, and then, inexplicably and out of nowhere, joy. These feelings came in no particular order. And I cycled through them. But then, at the appointed time, my fast ended.

I was out. Soon enough we were all out and back to civilian life where we could sit around eating food if we felt like it. Of course we felt like it.

We kept in touch for a bit but eventually we were back to the busy flow of our own lives. All of us managed to keep the code, not speaking about the fast unless asked. Even then, we didn’t say much. How could we? The whole thing seemed to take place on a totally different plane with its own laws and language.

What about the intentions we all brought to the fast? our reasons for doing it in the first place.

Did the math work out?

Did subtracting food subtract the problem?

No.

But something did happen. As hard as it is to describe, I will try anyway.

What changed involved sight. Everything looked different after the fast.

Not just some things— everything.

Everything appeared more real, more defined, brighter even. My own life in fact, was now strangely more alive than it had been days earlier. It felt charged with meaning and intensity. This process, like going bankrupt, happened slowly and then all at once.

While it was happening, and despite officially frowning upon our fasting, I felt the support of a few of our teachers, in a somewhat subversive way, cheering us on from the sidelines.

With Food’s necessity

Upon me—like a Claw—

I could no more remove

Than I could coax a Leech away

Or make a Dragon –move

The last thing I’ll say about it is this: at one point in the thick of the fast, when both the Leech and the Dragon came at me and I was alone, I found myself fumbling for some kind of weapon to use against them, one that was powerful and strong that could smite them both, when I stumbled onto the most obvious one, it was the life I had.

By this, and only this, we have existed

Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash