Starvation Games

a full day with zero food

5:30-10:29 am.

The usual bullshit, cuz I don't eat no breakfast ever anyway.

10:30 am.

Stomach growling. Ciliae with nothing to do, saying, “Bruh. Really? You had a light dinner last night. Why you doing this? What gives?”

I can't talk back. If I argue, they grow from the attention. I press forward, working and thinking about the things I love: my wife, my daughter, Substack, the novels I've written and not yet published, the book I'm reading, jiu-jitsu, the esoteric implications of Tarot, food.

Food. Ah, food.

My intestines groan from inactivity. Digesting dark matter is hungry business, but I mean to extract this mysterious ore from within the bowling ball somewhere in my center and transmute it into fuel. “No comprehension to fail,” Pantera's Mouth for War goes, “I vacuum the wind for my sail.” Sheeeeeeeet. I got this.

Disclaimer: I have been consuming caffeine. My wife says it's therefore not a fast. I don't care. I'd rather die than give up coffee. I don't know if that's really true. I like to believe it is.

11:30

I just walked by four people at a table eating crepes. Dweebs. Betas. Weaklings.

My lunch hour will consist of a 20-minute nap, a probable 15-minute meditation, and probable but unlikely 35-minute scheming on world domination.

Disclaimer: My wife says taking a nap is cheating. Delegating arduous minutes of this game to unconsciousness is a fair deal, I think, because I could be stuffing my face with WetzelBitz right now. Have you had WetzelBitz? They are these pillowy pretzel pieces of heaven slathered in butter and sprinkled with salt. They have zero nutritional value but are the sort of comfort food that preps you for an apocalypse through a meh-inducing food coma.

Above: WetzelBitz (Dr. Wetzel was a contemporary and fellow torturer of notorious Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible. He eluded prosecution for war crimes by making a name for himself in the baked goods business. I will no longer be complicit in any of that).

Bye for now. Źzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

12:30

The day is halfway done. I woke up at 5:30 am but the miseries of fasting don't set in until later—in this case 12:30, when the hunger pangs beg for mouth pleasure. Mouth pleasure. That's all the Epicurean take on consumption is. Mouth pleasure. What is such a trifle compared to the rarefied glories of teleportation, walking through walls, and floating? Floating alone is worth foregoing food. To crack open a window and blow yourself out of it like a dandelion spore is magnitudes greater than bottomless breadsticks and Caesar salad at the OG. I also have a sense of superiority going. All these plebs with their carbs and macros. I am a machine, an autophagous machine. I chew my weakness, extract therefrom the nutrients of badassery, and spit out the excrescences like sunflower seed hulls. Ptoo!

13:30

I have pierced through the first veil. On a normal day, I would have already eaten. I pretend as if I had. I listen to an Alan Watts talk. It helps. The pimp of Zen himself aids me in my plight. I can have all the air tacos I can get hold of. Lucky!

Ignoring time is key. No, to relish in the slow march of seconds is how you extract the nectar of being. Which one to adopt? That's the game, after all—the starvation game—to lose yourself in the present or yearn for the future where the goal has been achieved. Both are valid. Nachos.

Above: I needn’t tell you. If I do, die.

14:30

I walk by a large ad of a swimsuit model in a salmon-pink two-piece. Damn. The whittling away of oneself is glorious. Difficult, but in the end glorious.

Let the fourth dimension chisel me to perfection. Michelangelo's Pietà did not come about through empty carbs or a high glycemic index. When my cheekbones emerge, I shall spread those wings of vanity with a supercilious smile.

Look at all those plastic soft drink cups in peoples’ hands. Panda Express, Raising Canes, Rubio's. Truly pathetic. Love handles in liquid form IV-dripping through paper straws.

Raising Cane's have great chicken fingers. I don't like coleslaw but theirs is tremendous. Their Texas Toast is phenomenal, up there with the WetzelBitz. Their fries are bomb, too.

After typing the above, I literally walk by a bearded, bespectacled man in a black Catholic robe. The cross at his chest gleamed from afar. We don't share convictions but he is a kindred spirit, a fellow warrior taking up the crusade against indulgence.

15:30

Growing dizzy. It's OK. Equilibrium overrated. The more I strip myself of this nagging sense of taste, the more acute the remaining four senses will become. And that's the point. I want my mind to go to a place where external stimuli do not determine my inner contentment. Family Size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.

16:30

Why live? Seriously. Think about it. What a drag, all this breathing and eating and sleeping and plotting and conniving. Suicidal ideation as default.

The world is full of assholes. Life is whitewater-rafting down a raging river choked with craggy assholes looking to chew up your kayak.

17:30

On my way home. By this time, I'm usually fantasizing about the everlasting bliss that my wife's cooking or take-out will procure. Visions of endless depths at the end of my fork crackle across my cerebral cortex. I don't have that to fall back on. What to do? What's the purpose of anything? Right now, in thousands of restaurants, the roar of commerce and consumption has struck up like a raging symphony of indulgence, with participants throwing back margaritas, taquitos, mango habanero wings (bone-in), chili-fries, bison burgers, IPAs, asparagus in blue cheese, ribeyes, Old Fashioneds, bacon candy, Reubens, sourdough patty melts, French dips, Cobb salads, tri-tips, sweet potato fries, chocolate shakes, onion rings, jalapeño poppers, 805 on tap, Beyond Meat sliders, extra guac—

“Motherfucker! Watch where you're going! At least use your turning signal when you cut someone off! Did you run out of blinker fluid? Huh? FUCK!”

It took a good minute to get my heart rate back down. The elevated caffeine levels from the coffee from the machine at work and a stomach emptier than Greece's coffers don't exactly contribute to equanimity when a cherry-red hatchback zips in and out of lanes like a dumbass, disappearing out of sight, probably on his way to a nubile twenty-year-old and a deep-dish pizza.

I am sagacious. I am a samurai wafting on the wings of a solemn vow. I look forward to my daughter's cute face and cuter voice, her intelligence increasing at a daily clip. I look forward to my wife's beautiful face and more beautiful embrace.

I look forward to tomorrow.

18:30

As soon as I get hold of the eternal bliss I've been promised, I'm funneling it all to my gut. My duodenum has its arms folded, taking the longest cigarette break in history. I'll have a coffee from the Keurig, give the stomach false hope, be a real dick to the one organ who's been a dick to me as long as we've been together.

Disclaimer: Never mind. Heart's not in it.

19:30

I work on a novel to remain distracted. My daughter distracts me from my distraction with epistemological questions I'm happy to answer. The fridge is eight feet away. The pantry, fifteen. Untold delights roil within those two cornucopiae, collections of superimposed subatomic particles willing—pleading—to manifest into whatever form my watering mouth desires: Chips Ahoy (chewy), Pringles (Original), Capn Crunch (Original), cashews (salted), already-sliced watermelon, already-sliced pepperjack cheese, blueberry yogurt, flour tortillas, and popcorn (POPCORN!). These two contraptions, fridge and pantry, have me convinced they're 3D printers dishing out whatever comestible my heart so desires.

“Any more questions regarding a priori versus a posteriori, Sweetpea?”

She obliterates a bag of Nitro Takis, staring off into space. Enemies everywhere.

20:30

Two of God's cruelest inventions are our need to eat and time. If I could merge the two, I'd be set. Keep your eye on the prize. What prize, Dipshit? Seven billion eaters and you're not one of them? Well aren't you special! If I could chew on seconds, swallow minutes, and digest hours, I'd be the baddest man on the planet.

Instead—

Instead—

I can't work on the novel. What's the point of achieving anything if it doesn't lead to a feast? Plus, my characters do a lot of eating. Lucky schmucks.

21:30.

Almost bedtime. There will be food in the next hour of my consciousness.

I take my leave.

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Thank you for reading Third-Eye LASIK. For more self-deprecating attempts at achieving Eternal Cosmic Oneness or inane observations of reality, see below. I love you!

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