Mardi Gras, (Mardi-Tuesday, Gras-Fat), fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, Ash Wednesday being the first day of Lent - 46 days from Easter Sunday, 40 days plus 6 Sundays.

Lent, like I suppose Ramadan or the more recent secular Febfast, challenges us to test our weakness. Are we stronger than our desires and Mardi Gras is the last hoorah before you do the test. However, and I’m probably going right out on a limb here, I do not think much of the bacchanalianrevelry in Sydney is to do with the preparation for fasting, abstinence and prayer. Wrong day anyhow, it should have been called the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Fat Saturday, Samedi Gras.

What is it that has so many religious traditions focusing on a period of going without when everything else in modern society tells us to fulfill our desires? What is there to discover when you are driven by a desire to go without so as to find what may be deeper inside you but is clouded in the day to day ephemeral noises? How do you explain Tolstoy to a person who has only read comics? How do you know when you are no longer fit? How do you know when that neural plasticity is no longer being challenged and is in atrophy? How do you explain faith to someone who has never sought it, or how do you realise that the spirit that was there has gone?

I love books about Weary Dunlop. I do not think he had a religious faith but he had found the edge of what a person can be in the privation and humiliation of a POW camp and was good because of it and despite it. It appeared to me a faith like journey, possibly one without God, because being without makes you focus on who others are and who you are.

The idea of trying to remove the glitter to get to the core has obviously been around for a little while with the words "know thyself", in Greek, written on the forecourt of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. A Socratic principle incorporated by later religions or a core truth enunciated by them, take your pick, but I do not know if either way it can be plumbed with Lady Gaga, a gallon of vodka laced, sugar rich, carbonated cordials, a glow wand and other paraphernalia of  Mardi Gras.

There are many people who would say that our government lives in a continuous state of Mardi Gras, whilst many Australians live in a continuous state of Lent. The latest polling has probably made the Lenten experience more accessible for those in government. People who are going without and struggling with the cost of power and fuel become furious with the noble proclamations of righteousness that a tax can cool the planet or that they need more motivation to spend less on power and fuel. Enlightenment from not being able to afford the heater or the car should be optional. Likewise, that the Water Act 2007 in its current form, has more environmental rights than the people who live in the Murray Darling Basin, not equivalent rights, but greater rights and that Canberra’s desire to water their lawns and wash their cars is an evil attribute of past decadence.

Anyway, back to day 2 of Lent. By now I will have given up grog, it is the generic give up thing when you cannot think of anything else to give up. Tony Abbott is apparently going to give up leaving the house with less than two articles of clothing on. Julia is going to give up announcing policy that has not been passed by the Labor party caucus. Bob Brown is going to desist from calling pointless divisions in the Senate on issues that have no hope of even getting close to getting the numbers to win. Wayne Swan is going to stop borrowing money. Senator "Wacka" Williams is going to knock off the bungers and I am going to stop bludging smokes off those who haven't.

So humanity has decided over the millennia that a period where you go without is probably not bad for your soul or whatever term you put on the inner most part of what you are.