The Question of Fault

We were over in McDonalds yesterday for breakfast. I sniffed the grease like some kind of perverted addict, but ordered an unsweetened porridge and a water. Checked out the board with the items on it - now with calorie information on them - and grinned at a memory...Sighed...There was buggerall to grin at in the prospect of McDonalds porridge and water.
"What?" asked d, tucking into a Big Breakfast with extra sausage, and smiling at me.
"Oh, just remembering," I mused. "Before I started this Disappearing malarkey, I used to get McDonalds breakfasts every morning in Kensington."
"Aww," she said, genuinely sympathetic as she carved another slice of sausage.
"I used to get two double sausage and egg muffins, with anything up to five has browns...then take two porridges up to work," I said, remembering with a certain cardiac glee. "That means I used to have a whole day's calories from now...for breakfast."
The sausage hovered there in front of her now-open mouth. She blinked at me.
"Really?" she said.
"Yeeeeah..." I murmured.
"I never knew that!" she said.
"Oh yeah," I said. "Did that most work days."
"So - not my fault then?" she said.
I laughed.
"Nah. Most days, I'd have a three course lunch too," I added.
"I never knew that either!" she said.
"Oh yeah," I said again.
"I've been blaming myself all this time!" she said.
I laughed.
"No, really - I've been blaming myself all these years," she said, looking down. "And all the time it wasn't my fault..."
"Nooooo," I agreed wholeheartedly. "It was my fault, always. I've always said that..."

Let's be clear here, in case anyone else thinks my vast overeating was their fault - It was my fault. Glandular conditions and disabilities notwithstanding, every fat fuck carries their own destiny in their hands. Oh sure, we'll tell you - Hell, we'll tell ourselves - that we overeat becaaaaaase...what? Food is something in our lives we can control? There's a comfort in being excluded from the 'normal' world and not having to deal with all the bullshit? We eat for 'comfort'? A thousand other reasons. And they're all true on at least a surface level, but bottom line, whyever we think we do it, we choose to put things in our mouths that we know will ultimately harm us, and to not do the exercise we should do. And in the final analysis, we don't do it to hurt you, we do it more than anything to hurt ourselves, for whatever reason applies to us.

My pal Mae said something to me the other day - she was going shopping, and was contemplating whether or not she'd be buying chocolate.
"If you don't want it, don't buy it," I said.
"Hmm...we'll see how I do," she said. It struck me that she was thinking of the question as if the chocolate was animate, as though it had a power over what she did. I remember that feeling...
Hell, I still get that feeling, every time I get a craving for something; it's as though the truth isn't the truth any more, as though I don't have power over the decision to eat something that gives me temporary, wonderful pleasure, or not to do that, but push on towards a longer-term goal.
But the bottom line is the truth is still the truth, even when it stops feeling true. The choice - and the responsibility - for what we do is always ours.

Mae, as it turned out, conquered the chocolate that night. Just as I conquered the huge and steamy lust for grease that overcame me yesterday morning, and slurped at my porridge. It's all about the choice between temporary but sharp pleasure, and permanent, but flatter, Disappearing pleasure. That's the choice we make, every time there's something we want. Every Disappearing Day is a day of making that choice, and - not to harp on, but - making it count. Here's to every Disappearing Bugger who makes that choice every day - and every Disappearing Bugger who doesn't and falls off, or doesn't make it yet, or will plan to make it tomorrow. And in every case, for those around us who think it's their fault - remember, it isn't. It's ours. Always ours. Our fault, and our responsibility, always.