I begin night 1 of a water fast. The fear of quitting—the fear of failure, rides shotgun. As I type these words, I don't want anything to do with quitting. Yet, in these early nights, my resolve will diminish and the temptation will intensify in its seduction, telling me to quit just one more time and push fasting off on tomorrow. But, I'm done with doing just that for this day has been the object of all those yesterdays.

Yes, an adventure is exciting. We celebrate the call to adventure. But where next does the monomyth lead us? It is to either accept or to reject that call.

I am reminded of when I was a teenager and would be flooded with the fear of quitting seconds before I began I jog. Stopping or slowing to a walk along a jogging route was such a distasteful notion to me in those days that I feared it. That said, I never did quit. Today, I feel those same feelings in the vehicle of fasting.

All that aside, fasting is not just this indomitable spirit, this giant Rocky figure and his platitude of "...it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." No, fasting is more than forging the spirit to move on to the next night. For me, there is a sense of adventure in a long fast. While passing long shadows against hazy, amber hues, there's a road before me that converges into a horizon for me to explore. It is one part epic score music and one part retrowave. I really don't know is ahead for when I get into day 30, it will be new to me.