Required Reading: Letter 18: On Festival and Fasting
“…a man’s peace of mind does not depend upon Fortune; for even when angry she grants enough for our needs.”
Some live in festivities every single day; it is like Christmas; some look forward to the holidays; wherein they for once have the freedom to languish in gross misconduct; the adage “work hard; play hard” is common in many a vocabularly that look towards pleasure as recompense for the struggles of life.
Can one be blamed for this? Is it not written somewhere in the good book perhaps in the proverbs “meaningless, meaningless, life is meaningless…eat drink and be merry.” But to what expense? To your health? What health you retort; “I’m perfectlyt fine!” Yes, you are but what of your soul? Is it? Is it sole purpose to live and dine? Is that the comfort you seek? Have you tried starving off the body? Making it crave yet refusing it what it desires so uncontrollably? Try it and see.
Follow as Seneca states he sets aside certain number of days during which “you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare…? Why? Well, he explains it best “It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul toughen itself beforehand for occasion of greater stress; and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence.”
Living like this gives Fortune no power over you; for you tell her remarkably that you can make use of whatever she gives you; you stand not in need of more but the bare minimum of life! You are onto higher things; eternal things that she can not give or sell!
Let this way of life become a ritual you perform every so often; once a week is a good start; a whole week is better; a month of fasting best and now a year, supreme! It will heighten your senses; as stated by Seneca “establish business relations with poverty…Dare O my friend, to scorn the sight of wealth, and mould thyself to Kingship with God. For he alone is in kingship with God who has scorned wealth.”
Does it bring you great wonder that all of the great teachers of the world; one most especially, made himself known as being poor? Is this by accident? Why would all the sages, mystics, prophets and messiahs choose poverty over wealth? Again Voluntary Poverty! Farewell.
Word of the day:
Conflagration (noun): great and destructive fire; holocaust; inferno (The Oxford Amercan Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus 2nd Edition).
Quotations:
“For one may keep holiday without extravagance.”
“If you would not have a man flinch when the crises comes, train him before it comes.”
“Let us practice our strokes on the “dummy”; let us become intimate with poverty, so that fortune may not catch us off guard.”
“Ungoverned anger begets madness.” -Epicurus.
Questions:
1) Do you Fast? Why or why not?
2) Do you let loose during Thanksgiving; Christmas Holidays—enact your license towards gluttony; drunkenness; debauchery.
3) Under what code do you recognize or celebrate these holidays? Why? Do you know why you celebrate them? Or has it always been a national and/or family tradition.
Activities:
1) Check with your medical provider if necessary before beginning to fast. If cleared, begin to at least once a week til noon or til 6:00 PM.
2) Dress in your cheapest outfit for a day—with very old clothes, shoes, mimic a beggar/vagabond and ask yourself “is this the condition I fear?”
3) Begin to treat everyday the same—eat, drink, act normally as you would even during Christmas or Thanksgiving Holidays.
