Reach exceeding grasp…

(I’m alive, I’m awake, I’m aware. I’m always on the scene, look at me go, vo-de-yo-do. $10 to your favorite charity if you can cite the reference.)

The past day-and-a-half was interesting. From a food perspective, I am not hungry, but rather I am lusting after food. The difference? My body isn’t really asking for food at this point – I’m a bit weary, but the normal desire for food isn’t there. Instead, when I walk by any food items (peanuts, casserole, eggs, potato chips) or even get a whiff of something fragrant (lavender, in particular), my brain starts fantasizing like those shipwrecked guys in that Warner Brothers cartoon. Yesterday, I probably spent half an hour fantasizing about my next meal. (Tie between penne arrabiata and an El Farolito burrito) There’s a point here.

Yesterday, I also rode in a car for a last time until the fast ends. (It is also the last time I will use transportation of any kind). On the verge of a loss, there is a great, defining moment which captures the essence of the thing being lost. For me and my wonderful Acura RSX, it was cruising up on Highway 101 while blasting Wilco, Bob Dylan, and Blackalicious and singing along at the top of my lungs. Something magical about the link between music and an automobile.

Here’s the funny thing: as wonderful as cars are, we could mostly do without them. Think about this for a moment. After the “white flight” in America, we started to develop massive sprawl to connect city jobs to suburban homes and vice versa. This was possible because of automobiles and (rarely) mass transportation. Yet for many adults, we choose the areas we live in, work in, and relax in. The presence of cars allows us to tolerate the distance between these spaces. And in the process, cars have become more and more important. Like the snake eating its tail, the cars ended up not just a means for a lifestyle but an expression of that lifestyle itself.

Highway 101 gives a driver (who cares to notice it) an astonishing picture of the intersection between identity and automobile. There’s the million BMWs that are largely “owned” by people without the clear financial means for ownership. The thousands of thugged-out or pimped-out cruisers and SUVs. The gentrified SUVs with immaculate paint jobs for a car theoretically made for rural or apocalyptic living. The pickup trucks with extended cargo compartments. If you don’t think about it, the veneer indicates something specific. But then, you wonder: What does a status car like a Beamer mean if you don’t make money? If you aren’t a gangsta, what’s the value of a pimped ride? What is the difference between an SUV and a mini-van? And has that pickup truck ever carried anything but tailgaters?

I drive a car designed for “sportiness”. I’m not sure what the sport is. I have driven it fast – 145 MPH is my record. (I know, I know… it was 5 years ago. Don’t yell at me.) I would like to think I’m a sporty person with or without the car.

At Jaina conventions over the past few years, I have proposed this idea of going off of cars to many people. Strangely a lot of them balked. And I realized there was something astonishingly odd transpiring: though we need food to live, we will do without it for a fast. Though we don’t need a car to live, we can’t go even a day without it? What the heck is going on?

This is where it gets theological or at least Maslowian. I think something odd is happening to people in this post-industrial/information age: the phantom dependencies of consumerism are usurping even our material needs. Check out the Maslow hierarchy (linked above).

Here are some things that people are routinely doing without (or with less):

• Sex and sleep in the physiological strata
• Security of morality and security of family in the security strata
• Friendship, family, and sexual intimacy in love and belonging.

I won’t go into esteem or self-actualization here.So, here’s a question to Jains: what does it mean, exactly, if we have a fast designed to liberate ourselves from our ego and we can’t go without needs that aren’t even human or animal needs? Strange, no?

Report card for day 2:

Hunger level (0-10): 1

Water consumed: ~80ounces (unboiled)

Miles driven:25

Approximate kilowatt hours used: 1.5 KwH (I watched a football game)

Things I wanted to buy but did not: a few books, and an album on iTunes

Hours in silence: 14 (6 waking)

Weight (originally 160 lbs): 157 lbs