TIME; Thoughts Anyone?
It is now 3:05 am. What does that mean to you? It should mean that it’s, for one 3hours past midnight. The time when today becomes tomorrow, it is a method of describing the state of other people. You know that at 3am most people in your time zone are likely to be sleeping or partaking in activities that are considered to be night related. 3:05am is a time when we are told we should be letting our bodies recuperate for the following day of exertion. This means a couple things; it means that we are expected to sleep at a certain time and it also means that we are expected to wake up at a certain time. This leads to a question that we should be asking ourselves, but rarely do. Why is it that we are expected to be sleeping at 3:05am? It is because it is many hours after darkness has overtaken the outside. This makes sense for us biologically. Animals function better when they react to the light dark cycles of the world and try to operate in there parameters. They feel better, they are more alert, and they are more energized. It makes sense to follow a cycle that lets us feel like this. It also makes sense for another reason and that is that humans are community based in nature. We work together, eat together, relax together, and overall, we exist together. To let this all happen successfully, we need to be existing on the same schedule. Otherwise I’d be eating dinner at 3am and you would be eating dinner at 5pm. I’d wake up at 4pm and you would wake up at 7am. And it may not stay like this, I may end up existing on a 25hour cycle where I end up pushing everything forward by an hour each day and you might be on a 23hour cycle where everything gets pushed back by the same amount. In communal life this is a bad thing. And so we don’t allow this to happen, we let the sun dictate our lives. It makes us feel better as an individual and it lets us function better as a community.
In modern times one of these factors remains and one does not. Today we still need to function as a community, so it remains sensible to stay on the same schedule as everyone else. But recently, and I used the term loosely, we have come up with the ability to make high quality artificial light. The light bulb allows us to effectively turn on the sun in our own humble abode. And we can turn it on at what ever time we like, for however long we like. Another important fact to recognize is that we can also turn it off at our own discretion. There is also technology for an even higher quality light, one that mimics the light of the sun, sun lamps. This allows for artificially produced “natural” light to be created bringing with it the positive aspects or actual sunlight. This all means we have total control over light and dark in our own lives. This allows for us to change our existence as humans fundamentally.
We all have things that need to be accomplished that do not require us to function within the bounds of a social time framework. Large projects, research, art, thinking, and whatever else it may be, we all have things that we do not need to interact with other humans for. Yet we seem to try to fit these tasks into daily life anyway. This is not only useless, but harmful. We are fighting our natural rhythms of sleep and wake time for no reason. When there is an extended period of time where it would be beneficial to be alone, there is absolutely no reason to maintain our strict obedience to the sun’s relentless cycle.
We should let our bodies dictate our actions. Our own internal clock should decide when we sleep and when we wake. When we work and when we rest. We would still be aware of the outside world but we would not be slave to its rigid pattern. If you are most effective working on a 30hour cycle, then you should exist on that cycle until you have to reintegrate yourself back into the community based world. You can control your own environment. Turn on the light, or turn off the light at your own internal clock’s whim. Become your own master and accomplish more.
In modern times one of these factors remains and one does not. Today we still need to function as a community, so it remains sensible to stay on the same schedule as everyone else. But recently, and I used the term loosely, we have come up with the ability to make high quality artificial light. The light bulb allows us to effectively turn on the sun in our own humble abode. And we can turn it on at what ever time we like, for however long we like. Another important fact to recognize is that we can also turn it off at our own discretion. There is also technology for an even higher quality light, one that mimics the light of the sun, sun lamps. This allows for artificially produced “natural” light to be created bringing with it the positive aspects or actual sunlight. This all means we have total control over light and dark in our own lives. This allows for us to change our existence as humans fundamentally.
We all have things that need to be accomplished that do not require us to function within the bounds of a social time framework. Large projects, research, art, thinking, and whatever else it may be, we all have things that we do not need to interact with other humans for. Yet we seem to try to fit these tasks into daily life anyway. This is not only useless, but harmful. We are fighting our natural rhythms of sleep and wake time for no reason. When there is an extended period of time where it would be beneficial to be alone, there is absolutely no reason to maintain our strict obedience to the sun’s relentless cycle.
We should let our bodies dictate our actions. Our own internal clock should decide when we sleep and when we wake. When we work and when we rest. We would still be aware of the outside world but we would not be slave to its rigid pattern. If you are most effective working on a 30hour cycle, then you should exist on that cycle until you have to reintegrate yourself back into the community based world. You can control your own environment. Turn on the light, or turn off the light at your own internal clock’s whim. Become your own master and accomplish more.