‘Tis the season of doing without

I'm not a very religious man, but I usually try to give up something for Lent. Over the years I’ve somehow convinced myself that occasional self-denial is a good thing. This year I guess it’ll be wine.

That’s a heavy burden. I like wine. But it doesn’t count unless you give up something you like. Maybe not even then. For me it’s like tuning out Facebook for a few days: Mostly it’s about pulling a blog topic out of my ass, and demonstrating a certain amount of self-mastery in the process.

Not that I discount the other things traditionally associated with Lent — soul-searching and repentance and taking stock of what, exactly, one’s life is supposed to to be about. Actually, that pretty much describes one day without wine for yours truly. If I can hold out for 40 of them, I’ll be a saintly man indeed.