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Lent

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00:00 / 22.02.07

A few years ago, a post-Catholic friend convinced me Lent was a good idea. You give up something that's bad for you anyway in order to make yourself a fit place for the Divine or whateverthefuck to inhabit. That year, there was only one thing that was really really bad for me that I couldn't seem to stop indulging in. This year, it's back with a vengeance, so I'm going to do more or less the same thing: I'm giving up worrying excessively about what other people think about me.

How about you?

astrojax69

00:19 / 22.02.07

you know no-one will reply to you, given what they all think...

i should give up sarcasm...

grant

01:02 / 22.02.07

I've just spent all day fasting (with juice, since I've got a cold).

I set aside other books and read a book of the Bible for Lent. I can't say it's made me more virtuous or more religious (that Joshua was one bloody dude), but it certainly makes me better informed.

Last year, I got through Job. Puzzling book, that one.

Alex's Grandma

02:23 / 22.02.07

Grant it's only about twenty pages long, you slacker ...

Booze.

Booze.

I'm giving up giving things up.

Lent's gonna be one long party!

Evil Scientist

08:49 / 22.02.07

I'm going to give up.

I surrender!

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

09:45 / 22.02.07

I've given up video. No movies, TV, downloaded-stuff-on-the-computer. Hopefully this will help restore some of my faltering attention span and get me back reading and writing more.

I'm not even Catholic -- this is just moral support for somebody who is.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

13:28 / 22.02.07

I'm still not telling. I figure every time that I give something up for Lent, I make a rather big production out of it--"Yes, that's right!!! No cheese/sugar/booze/cigarettes/kicking grannies/dancing onstage with musicians!!! Yes!!"--and then it becomes a game for my friends to figure out how to get me to break them in record time. (Shaz still holds the record, by the way.) So...in order to firmly, RESOLUTELY, stick to my wee little Catholic Lenten guns, I ain't telling.

And no, it's not masturbation.

HCE

19:26 / 22.02.07

How long do I have to give it up for?

20:53 / 22.02.07

Well, if you're doing Lent, until Easter is standard practice.

Tim Tempest

20:57 / 22.02.07

I'd give up my virginity for lent. That's how hardcore I am.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:08 / 22.02.07

Keep believing in the dream, Oddman. Keep believing in the dream.

HCE

23:18 / 22.02.07

When is Easter?

23:21 / 22.02.07

Uh... *checks online* April 8th.

HCE

00:42 / 23.02.07

I don't know if I can last that long, but I will try.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:44 / 23.02.07

I'm giving up paying strange obesience to the traditions of a faith I do not subscribe to while justifying it using vague psuedo-spiritual/cod-psychological/health freak mumbo jumbo!

Thankfully Lent is over before Christmas, so I can start doing that again then.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

12:07 / 23.02.07

It's been two whole days, Flyboy. How are you holding up?

Spaniel

12:08 / 23.02.07

I think it's good idea to see how you do without your little crutches. Especially if those crutches are stimulants, intoxicants, and/or are addictive.

Not that I've ever given up anything for Lent, mind, but if people feel it's a useful spur, hey, that's great in my book.

Spaniel

12:10 / 23.02.07

To continue...

When my Mum (a practicsing Christian, granted) gave up chocolate for Lent a few years ago it snowballed into a full blown diet. She's now much fitter and much healthier. Yay.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

12:16 / 23.02.07

Well, I think one date is as good as another, really. There's some motivation in knowing that lots of other people are embarking on minor self-improvement or self-testing projects at the same time, even if I don't share the tradition that has led them to give it a try.

I've been vaguely meaning to try to wean myself off movies/video for a while now anyway, so "why not Lent?" was a much better question that "why Lent?" given that lots of people I know are trying similar exercises for the same span of time.

Got a huge stack of bédé from the library last night, a friend is visiting this weekend, and the woodshed is full. I'm looking forward to a nice March of sitting by the fire and reading. I'm actually glad that Lent gave me this extra little kick in the ass.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:28 / 23.02.07

What is a crutch, Boboss?

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:36 / 23.02.07

I think it's good idea to see how you do without your little crutches.

Tell you what, though - if you say that to people who are on crutches, little or no, they get really pissy.

Princess

13:00 / 23.02.07

I'm giving up the Universtiy of Wales, Aberystwyth.
AHAHAHAHA!

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:23 / 23.02.07

...Which is why the use of the term "crutch" to mean "something people lean on in a lazy or weak fashion because they're not strong enough to make it on their own" is really unhelpful, IMHO.

Sure, sometimes people use Lent or whatever excuse to give up a type of behaviour that is harmful to them or others, or which interfere with goals they want to achieve in life or their continued happiness. But it also seems to me that a lot of people think Lent (or the New Year, or whatever) is about giving up things they enjoy, things that make it easier for them to get through the week, the things they treat themselves with or even their support mechanism. Fuck that.

15:04 / 23.02.07

Fuck it with a crutch.

Yeah, watch me really enjoy NOT worrying incessantly about what people might or might not be thinking about me. It's been nice so far to have a break, and hopefully I won't decide to start back up after Easter. Overall, I think it'll be good, and fun, whatever language I use to describe it and whatever arbitrary dates I pick. I also think it'll make me a better person to be around.

Spaniel

15:15 / 23.02.07

Sure, sometimes people use Lent or whatever excuse to give up a type of behaviour that is harmful to them or others, or which interfere with goals they want to achieve in life or their continued happiness

That is a better way of putting it than "crutch", and that was what I was getting at. I had a child shouting in my ear at that moment and was aiming for shorthand. I'm sure most of us knew what I was trying to say, although I completely agree that people, all too often, see Lent, etc... as an opportunity to give up things that actually make their lives a bit easier. Like some kind of weird self-torture.

illmatic

15:28 / 23.02.07

But it also seems to me that a lot of people think Lent (or the New Year, or whatever) is about giving up things they enjoy, things that make it easier for them to get through the week, the things they treat themselves with or even their support mechanism. Fuck that.

Don't we have an ambivalent relationship with these things, though? An innocent enjoyment can rapidly become a self-destructive habit, and flip back again. Perhpas giving them up - or trying to - is a good way to explore that?

Spaniel

15:41 / 23.02.07

That's a good point, Eggs, but isn't there also a problematic strain of thinking that sees virtue in the suffering of abstinence. What I mean to say is, that often people seem to see the act of giving up something as virtuous in and of itself and miss the fact that giving something up often takes other things like genuine commitment and personal desire. I'm think of people like the smoker (my SO's mum for example) who feel that they ought to give up smoking because giving up smoking is good in and of itself, which, I think, is arguable.

Did that make any sense? I'm thinking while I'm typing and I'm not very good at that but I don't have much time.

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:04 / 23.02.07

It's interesting. I mean, unless you _are_ dedicating 40 days without cigarettes, say, to God then in one sense there isn't a lot of point in doing it. On t'other hand, if you want to experiment with how it feels not to have something in your life, and do so in a structured context in which many other people will be doing the same thing and can share the experience - positive and negative.

I mean, I don't have that, because I have no framework for Lent, and it has never had any relevance to me, but for people who have occupied a more _socially_ Christian space, I can see the logic of experimenting with taking something out of your life. The main concern would be the 40-day limit...

Whisky Priestess

16:22 / 23.02.07

I guess if you try it for 40 days and decide you can do without it, that's probably a good thing, assuming you are giving up something that isn't good for you.

I gave up drinking a few years ago and was much richer. And then I realised that my birthday fell within Lent and said "fuck it". Managed a good 3 or 4 weeks though.

Alex's Grandma

16:30 / 23.02.07

I supoose it might be interesting to give up going to church for Lent, if you were a regular otherwise.

You could explain to the local vicar that you felt as if you were relying on the whole thing a bit much, and wanted to see if you could stand on your own two feet for a bit, to in fact have your forty days in the wilderness, like Jesus did.

Thinking about it, anything else seems a bit lame. For added bang for one's self-flagellating buck, there'd always be the option of signing up for a kibbutz in the Sinai desert.

Ticker

16:51 / 23.02.07

from the wiki:

The English word lent derives from the Germanic root for Spring (specifically Old English lencten; also the Anglo-Saxon name for March - lenct - as the main part of Lent, before Easter, usually occurred in March).

The Lent semi-fast may have originated for practical reasons: during the era of subsistence agriculture in the West as food stored away in the previous autumn was running out, or had to be used up before it went bad in store, and little or no new food-crop was expected soon (compare the period in Spring which British gardeners call the "hungry gap").

Alex's Grandma

17:15 / 23.02.07

Yeah, but they're so, I don't know, reluctant to face up to reality, the people who write the wiki, don't you find?

All they're doing is extending their time in purgatory, these characters, when they come out with that sort of thing.

The thing about Christian festivals and the so-called pagan traditions is that it's a coincidence, yeah?

electric monk

17:19 / 23.02.07

I love you, Grandma.

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