When I first wrote up my plan to fast in honor of Nikolai Vavilov and his institute staff, I conceived of it as basically a thing for myself, that might interest a few other people. It both got much more response than I expected, and more response (positive and negative) treating it as a bid for community structure rather than one of many things that someone, somewhere was doing. That wasn’t my goal and to be honest I feel trepidatious about the concept: I was going for a very specific thing and I’m simultaneously really happy it resonated with so many people and concerned about dilution
But the Vavilov Day concept clearly has enough energy behind it that I don't feel right blocking discussion. I continue to not want to host that discussion on a personal post about my own choices, so have created this post instead.
Some things I think might be good to share here:
Your specific observation of Vavilov Day and how it felt (I was surprised a lot of people defaulted to a 36 hour fast; to the extent other people joined in I expected them to pick their own thing)
Feelings about the core concept and ontology
Ideally keeping discussion about the larger patron saints/holiday anarchy discussion over on that post instead.
What you’d like to be different or the same for you next year.
In my ideal world, this conversation is a bunch of individuals discussing actions and ideas to figure out what works best for them. But some of the pent-up discussion is about that attitude (vs. something more community built), and I don't get to declare my view correct by fiat. However I will ask that you keep that frame in mind and, if someone's responses don't make sense or seem oppressive, consider that this might be why.
Good point to bring up here which is electrolyte shortage can produce some of the very symptoms i felt. I completely failed to consider this (or even read some Fasting-101 blog post or NIH study) before jumping feet first into a three day fast. Take this as a rule of thumb: Is there anything you'd want to know that a 5-minute google search could tell you?
When I first wrote up my plan to fast in honor of Nikolai Vavilov and his institute staff, I conceived of it as basically a thing for myself, that might interest a few other people. It both got much more response than I expected, and more response (positive and negative) treating it as a bid for community structure rather than one of many things that someone, somewhere was doing. That wasn’t my goal and to be honest I feel trepidatious about the concept: I was going for a very specific thing and I’m simultaneously really happy it resonated with so many people and concerned about dilution
But the Vavilov Day concept clearly has enough energy behind it that I don't feel right blocking discussion. I continue to not want to host that discussion on a personal post about my own choices, so have created this post instead.
Some things I think might be good to share here:
In my ideal world, this conversation is a bunch of individuals discussing actions and ideas to figure out what works best for them. But some of the pent-up discussion is about that attitude (vs. something more community built), and I don't get to declare my view correct by fiat. However I will ask that you keep that frame in mind and, if someone's responses don't make sense or seem oppressive, consider that this might be why.