I have given up both coffee and alcohol in the past, the former for years and the latter for weeks at a time. I've never deliberately given up meat, but if I happen to eat vegetarian meals several days running, I start to notice, and feel a sense of "aah, that's more like it" at my next meat meal. So I think that means coffee is easier than alcohol is easier than meat.
I disallowed broccoli as a reasonable object of asceticism because doing without it would either involve eating less healthily (asceticism is taken too far if it's at the expense of actual wellbeing) or replacing it in my diet with some other vegetable which would have a roughly similar level of luxuriousness (hence not really succeeding in asceticism at all).
However, in my book Lent is something that happens to other people. I've consumed coffee already today; this evening I will consume meat and broccoli, almost certainly use an iPad, and may well have a glass of something alcoholic just to make the point. I think deliberately going out and buying some anchovies and a copy of Starcraft 2 would probably be excessive, but I'll be thinking it.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2011-03-09 04:31 pm (UTC)I disallowed broccoli as a reasonable object of asceticism because doing without it would either involve eating less healthily (asceticism is taken too far if it's at the expense of actual wellbeing) or replacing it in my diet with some other vegetable which would have a roughly similar level of luxuriousness (hence not really succeeding in asceticism at all).
However, in my book Lent is something that happens to other people. I've consumed coffee already today; this evening I will consume meat and broccoli, almost certainly use an iPad, and may well have a glass of something alcoholic just to make the point. I think deliberately going out and buying some anchovies and a copy of Starcraft 2 would probably be excessive, but I'll be thinking it.