update

well, here i am.

it's been a long minute since i last trod upon these white spaces. currently i am sitting and enjoy a fine mint tea, instead of the yerba mate latte that i would prefer from this particular place. the reasoning behind this masochism is that i am currently on day six of what is typically called the 'master cleanse'. and if you don't know what that is, well:

http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=master+cleanse

basically this means that any food and drink aside from this tangy lemonade concoction (fresh lemon juice, water, pure organic maple syrup, and a dash or four of cayenne pepper), basically anything that exists outside the confines of my old nalgene bottle, is off the table for me. i am sort of at peace with this, sometimes. other times i can't help but fantasize about digging my teeth into the explosive tastiness of enchiladas, apple fritters, etc etc etc. my list is lengthy, but it's actually kind of fun. i felt for a little while like i was sort of in a rut with food....always eating the same things and not getting much variety in. that may or may not have actually been accurate, but once you've had a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich every day for a week, you start to tire of all aspects of it....the combination of flavors, the texture, the size; the redundant steps of preparation, especially if ingredients are particularly hazardous to handle. now i feel like i am really beginning to smell food. maybe it has something to do with sensory deprivation of sorts, for an extended period of time, but my receptors truly latch onto scents now. i didn't know the capacity that they had before this...outrageousness.

it is interesting to see, when removed from the fray, how much people actually concern themselves with food. whenever mention is made of it now, my ears prick up as if conditioned...and it is alarming, the rate at which this happens. people talk about food, or eating, or planning to eat, or having just eaten, or having eaten years ago, ALL the time. it is coming to the point where i might start believing that 30% of human conversation (and that might even be conservative) is composed by the humming strings and harpings of food appreciation and critique. watching TV nowadays is almost more torturous....one realizes what a consistent and necessary commodity food actually is, as observed in the droning drummings of food-based or oriented commercials. sometimes even shows. the airwaves are saturated with promises of flavor.

and the mention of flavor brings up one of the most poignant distinctions that this fast has helped me to realize, which is the distinction between actual, necessary hunger and psychological, sometimes even social (which one supposes is psychological as well), craving. despite the fact that i haven't eaten any solid food for, damn if it isn't 6 days now (7 if we don't count just fruit), i haven't really experienced any pangs of severe hunger. i'm not entirely sure that i ever have. i have felt probably the same depth of hunger as i have experienced at other times in my life, but they lack something now, some imperative. they lack validation. it's as if the only reason that they seemed so strong in other scenarios was because they were fueled with the strength of my expectations, with my then-concepts about what 'full' and 'hungry' were. after doing this, i don't think that such naive concepts should be able to get the better of me again. i remember as a child, whining on hiking trails that i 'simply could not go on' without stopping for food. i'm sure that if i were promised a feast sitting at a table two miles from where i stood, my legs would miraculously find the strength to carry me to it~ after this experience, i feel that my definitions of what 'full' and 'hungry' are will shift noticeably. they rest on a spectrum, as do all dualities it seems, and generally our minds operate within a very thin band of what we have experienced. only by pushing the boundaries of our experiences can we learn to see things differently. now i know that when i feel the same hunger that i used to feel...well, i still have half a tank left, in case i need it to get anywhere. even if you are blind to it, your body has ways of course-correcting.