25–5–21-W RMSDJ 📖 ✍🏽

25–5–21-W
141 ⏳ 224 🗓️ W21
RMSDJ 📖 ✍🏽
🌡️ 92° – 61° 😎
🌖 ♓

🌄 MORNING

Last night—or rather, in the quiet hour just before dawn—I found myself circling an unwelcome necessity: a chapter on diabetes. I had hoped to resist further expansion of the manuscript, yet this particular affliction, so prevalent across continents, can no longer be ignored. If fasting is a doorway to healing, how can I close it to those who suffer most?

💡”The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, although the two cannot be separated.” — Plato

❓What good is a fast that forgets the one who most needs its embrace?

The same thoughts greeted me at waking. I did not rise from the mattress until 8:00 a.m., choosing instead to remain still until my aromatherapy session called me. I wonder: was that hesitation a symptom of fatigue—or a moment of sacred pause?

💡”The rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, and the harmony of the soul create the symphony of life.” — B.K.S. Iyengar

❓Do we listen closely enough to the symphony playing inside us?

Another idea steeped itself quietly: a chapter on hydration during the fast. Should it not be there, just as essential as breath? I will introduce my favorite infusion—green tea with lemon—but offer it with precision. Ten minutes of steeping. Lemon only after the brew has cooled to room temperature. This is not habit. It is intention. A kind of alchemy.

💡”Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

❓Might the way we prepare a drink reflect how we prepare the self?

I’m also realizing that crafting this journal within an AI environment is far less daunting than I once imagined. Errors are permitted. Even welcomed. Each misstep is a stroke in the painting.

💡”A man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.” — Edward Phelps

❓Can flaw be the doorway through which elegance enters?

This morning brought a mild protest in my lower back, no doubt earned from yesterday’s rigorous pull on the hammer-strength machines at Gold’s Gym. It was not pain—it was a souvenir.

💡”Discomfort is the currency of mastery.” — Robin Sharma

❓Do we confuse momentary soreness with weakness—or with proof?

The forecast beckons with heat—92°, though I suspect the barometer may whisper its way toward 95°. The sky holds its breath. Summer rehearses.

Today I intend to dedicate myself entirely to The Fasting Life. I wonder whether its acronym—TFL—might carry with it the energy of a brand. Or a movement. Something to carry the idea forward.

💡”Give your idea a name—and you give it a life.” — RM Sydnor

❓Will TFL stand as a vessel or a beacon?



🍋🍵  The Joys of Lemon

This morning I decided to slice the fresh lemons I’d purchased from Super King. The fragrance was immediate—bright, sunlit, almost ancestral. It reminded me of something elemental, like the citrus groves of childhood memory. The juice, having spilled slightly onto the green cutting board, gleamed like gold on jade. I did not wipe it away. Instead, I pressed it into my hands and rubbed it gently along my arms. The scent lingered, as if it had something to teach me.

💡”Scent is the soul’s shorthand for memory.” — RM Sydnor 

❓What memories awaken when we allow the simplest fragrances to stay a while?

I chose to cut the lemon into small squares rather than long slices—an aesthetic and practical decision. These compact pieces, I find, steep better in my tea. They unfurl themselves more generously in the water, like petals surrendering to light. I remind myself, again, of the sacred timing: the tea must steep for no fewer than ten minutes. The lemon, always, must meet the tea only after the temperature has lowered—never in haste.

💡”Precision is the poetry of practice.” — Lao Tzu

❓Do we treat our rituals with enough reverence, or do we rush past the chance to perfect them?


📱🎙️ The Quiet Work Before the Sun Stands Tall

What I accomplished today was not mere revision.
It was a recalibration. A delicate re-threading of truth through the pages of the book.

I returned the bowl to its rightful place—spiritually anchored, visually restrained.

No longer ornamental. Now liturgical. Each instance purposeful, each absence intentional.

Two long-lost chapters found their way back: The Alchemy of Hunger and The Meditation and the Fasting Mind. Not additions—reincorporations. Their reappearance restored balance to the structure.

The Table of Contents now stretches to twenty-five chapters.
And yet, it feels lighter—leaner—because everything unnecessary has been refused.

I then adjusted the Preface—not with flourish, but with fidelity.
We remembered aloud what should never have been forgotten:
that fasting is not something modern, but something primordial.
We are always fasting—in body, in attention, in longing.

And finally, I polished The Ancient Table until it gleamed like the empty dish it evokes.



🌅 AFTERNOON

The barometer touched 94°, and for once, the sun’s boast was justified. The heat didn’t merely linger—it pressed. Most of the morning I devoted to The Fasting Life, my steady companion and evolving flame. Chapter by chapter, I shaped thought into form, breath into line.

💡 “Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well.” — Epictetus

❓ What if contentment isn’t surrender, but a quiet mastery of the moment?

I ended my fast at 13:30. Eighteen hours and thirty minutes. That number has become its own kind of music. Not defiant, not extreme—just steady. There is grace in knowing your own rhythm.

💡 “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” — Aristotle

❓ How often do we mistake inconsistency for freedom, when it’s often just drift?

Surprisingly, there was no bowel movement this morning. A silent internal note. My body, always reliable in its signals, simply whispered nothing today.

💡 “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” — Lao Tzu

❓ Are we attuned to the silence of the body, or only to its sirens?

Lunch was a quiet affair: supplemented coffee, green tea with lemon, a Medjool date, cinnamon raisin bread with extra sharp cheddar, a lotus Biscoff cookie, Sanders chocolate, and a disappointing stuffed bell pepper mostly filled with beans. I drank a small container of orange juice and a sip of grapefruit juice. I had considered salad, but reserved it for evening.

💡 “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” — Brillat-Savarin

❓ When we call a meal Spartan, is it discipline or deprivation we’re honoring?

Amazon Music’s “Relaxing Guitar” filled the day like a breeze through curtains—unnoticed until its absence. Soft notes drifting between thought and task.

💡 “Music is the shorthand of emotion.” — Leo Tolstoy

❓ Can the right melody carry you further than the wrong words?

I retrieved my package: blue glare goggles designed to fit over my glasses. Much sturdier and more comfortable than the brittle snap-on pair I’ll be returning to Amazon. Caesar approved of the new ones—his nod more precise than most reviews.

💡 “The details are not the details. They make the design.” — Charles Eames

❓ Do we too often settle for less when what we need is only a choice away?

I spoke with Anna Sanchez about fasting. She’s making an honest effort, but confesses to eating as late as 10:30 p.m., despite intending to finish between 6:00 and 7:30. Her awareness is a good start. But fasting, like any discipline, thrives only on consistency.

💡 “Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most.” — Abraham Lincoln

❓ How many of our promises to ourselves are broken softly, by habit?

I also saw Brian Aquino—steadfast, measured, still serving in the National Guard. He spoke of his plans to earn IT certifications and transition into computer work. Purpose flickers in his eyes.

💡 “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
❓ How do we hold onto hope while still mapping a road toward it?

Later, I noticed another Brian, this one from Orkin, waiting outside Fred Derobi’s closed office. Aquino accompanied him through the property for pest maintenance. I asked that my room be treated.

💡 “Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.” — P.J. O’Rourke

❓ Is progress best measured by what we no longer need to endure?

He entered quickly, replaced the traps, and sprayed. No roaches. None. A quiet triumph. Sometimes progress doesn’t make a sound.

💡 “Success is the sum of small efforts—repeated day in and day out.” — Robert Collier

❓ What if our real victories are the ones we forget to celebrate?

The rest of the day belongs to The Fasting Life, known here by its family name: TLF. I intend to write until the light becomes too golden to ignore.

💡 “Work while you have light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.” — Henri-Frédéric Amiel

❓ Are we faithful stewards of the talents we’ve been given, or simply owners who forget to invest?