Polyphasic Sleeping

I've decided to try polyphasic sleeping. The difference between polyphasic and monophasic sleeping, which is what most people do, is that polyphasic sleeping consists of multiple sleeping periods, where monophasic consists of only one.

So for example if you are a monophasic sleeper you probably sleep 8 hours in a night, give or take a bit.

Polyphasic sleeping, on the other hand, happens 4 times throughout the day, 30 minutes per cycle. Usually the sleeping periods (or naps) are spread evenly apart throughout the day. So for example, my current schedule is to sleep for 30 minutes at 10am, 4pm, 10pm, and 4am.

The idea is that your body adjusts from having 90 minute sleep cycles, of which you typically spend 20-30 in REM, to having 30 minute sleep cycles, of which you typically spend 30 in REM.

Though you end up only sleeping a total of 2 hours, those full two hours are in REM sleep, which is the equivalent of getting 6 hours of unbroken sleep in a night.

I see two major benefits: 1) getting unbroken sleep with a 2 year old is nearly impossible, so 30 minute cycles make it much more likely to get the right amount of sleep, and 2) I get an additional 4 hours of time to do things like write a blog post, go to the gym, etc.

I'm trying this method of sleeping for 1 month, then I'll determine whether I'd like to continue or go back to monophasic sleeping.

I must say, convincing myself to get out of bed after 30 minutes at night is the toughest part. Other than that, as of today (end of day 2, start of day 3) I feel pretty good in terms of energy level and wakefulness.

I can also already tell that my body is starting to adjust as I am experience REM sleep which feels longer, so I think I'm somewhere around 15-20 minutes of REM compared with 10 minutes or so when I started.

Is it difficult? So far.
Unpleasant? Only at night.
Potentially awesome? I still think so. We'll see how I feel in a few days :-)

Biggest drawback is seeing LuAnne sleeping peacefully in our bed and having to leave. But with starting a business and soon expecting a newborn, I think this style of sleeping has the potential to have a huge and beneficial impact on my quality of life.

Return of the Dirty Hippie

It's not that I think I can change the world. I'm not that full of myself. What I think is that regardless of whether i can or not, I should damn well try.

About a week ago i was drunk. Now let's be clear - if you qualify all states of sobriety as a kind of continuum, with sober on one end, tipsy in the middle, and drunk on the end, i was somewhere off the continuum in what i like to call "WTF was i thinking" land.

Somewhere on the way home, as i was riding in the passenger seat and watching the world fly by, I had a thought that shook me pretty badly: "The world is the way it made itself." Trying to change the way the world works is as futile as trying to change the way a person thinks or acts. It doesn't work. The change needs to come from within.

Have you ever quit an addiction? Most people don't know this, but I used to smoke. Granted, it's not like I smoked my whole life, but I did smoke about a pack a day for almost 3 years. I say almost because I quit about 3 or four times in there - always for a week or even a month at the most.

One day I got sick. Not a real bad sick, mind you, but sick enough that I decided that since I could barely breathe as it was, I should maybe lay off the cigarettes until i got better.

About one week later I was feeling better, and I practically hopped and skipped (as much as one can do so while driving) to the gas station to buy my first pack of "post crud" cigarettes. Camel Lights. (yeah, get the laughs out now you Marlboro smokers)

I lit up my cigarette (not sure that doing it while at the pump was so genius) and took my first drag ... which turned into my first gag.

I don't know if it was a stale pack. I don't know if I was still a little sick. What i know is that i can't remember having ever tasted something so foul, and i threw the whole pack away. Now, all you smokers out there know what an effort it usually is to throw a whole pack of smokes away ... trust me - it's usually harder than cutting off a finger. (maybe your pinkie)

Somewhere within that last week, my body and/or my mind had done without my conscious interaction what I had been unable to do for 3 years. I had no reason to quit. No desire to quit. I had simply stopped wanting to smoke.

I think there are a lot of stories like that out there. People who didn't decide to change - they just did.

I think the world is like that. I think maybe all we need is an event, or a movement, or a single thought that gives us a chance to give up our current way of living for a better one.

More importantly, i think that we have the tools and technology to end our need for societal stratification. We have the resources to give everyone everything they want without them having to step on someone else to get it.

Bull, right? No way can i convince someone to work in a factory to make me my new iPod if they've got everything they need, right?

Well ... yeah. Absolutely right. But why does that person need to work in a factory at all? We have computers and robots that can do practically EVERYTHING in that factory.

Uh oh - we've hit the first stumbling points right there, haven't we? First off - computers and robots aren't free! Second, what will those unskilled laborers do instead?!

Free? Of course not! Not in terms of money. But what good does money do? All it does is provide a medium with which people can trade and barter on equal footing. What if it was taken for granted that you got out what you put in?

I actually heard your eyes rolling there, but bear with me. Just assume that it's possible for now, ok? We won't get anywhere if you're not willing to stretch your imagination! As i said fairly recently on a conference call "OK, i've heard all the reasons why we can't and shouldn't do this. Now let's re-focus and try to think of ways that it COULD work..."

So let's pretend that the world would keep turning without money. Who makes the computers and robots that produce the iPods instead of the workers? Well, more robots and computers! At first we'd have to build the builders, so to speak, but after that they keep running with maintenance and programming.

So who designs the robots? The computer systems? Who maintains all these things?

People who like doing those things, of course! There will always be people who like to tinker and fix, and people who like to program and design. In a system where everyone has what they want, everyone can do what they want. This of course raises the question of laziness. Why do anything if you don't need to? Let me ask you - after you've been on vacation for a week, or maybe two, do you want to keep doing nothing? Or do you wish you were doing something you loved? Maybe that something is your job - maybe it's a different job. But you want to do SOMETHING.

Humans aren't lazy, we fill the time we have with the things we want to do. When we're on vacation or the weekend, the last thing we want to do is work, but if all we had was weekends and vacation, all we would be able to think about would be to do SOMETHING. Preferably something we love to do!

So those robots and computers came from a place that made them. Simple as that. And yes, they were free. The were built using raw materials that were gathered by people who like working with their hands. Don't bother son, it's turtles all the way down.

I was going to answer the question about "unskilled" laborers, but I think I already have. They'll be busy doing something they love, and something they're "skilled" at. Because no one is unskilled.

This idea that everyone can have everything and no one needs to be hungry or poor may sound extreme, i know. But it's not ridiculous, and it's not unfathomable. It's not communism, and it's not insanity. It's what we're capable of.

It is what humanity is capable of.

I don't know if we'll ever get there. I don't know if anything i ever do could help us get there. What i do know is that i've thrown away the pack of BS beliefs, and if i can help start that change everywhere else, you can bet your bottom denomination that I'll try. If i can't? If it's hopeless? Nothing's hopeless. And at least I'll be able to say i tried.

The Hero Myth

I think we're all waiting for someone to show up and tell us that we're destined for greater things. According to Joseph Campbell, the basic hero myth starts off with the hero longing to do or be something else. But doesn't everyone reach an age or a point in their lives where they wish there were more? Or that they were living an almost entirely different life? Or maybe feel that there is something else they're destined for?
Maybe that's what the hero myth really does: provides us a story that we can relate to, and feel like we get sympathy, compassion, and self-motivation from it. In essence, it's telling us "You're not alone! This happened to someone else! This is that person's story ..."
So where do we find our mentor? Our change agent? Where is our Obi-Wan to lead us from Tatooine? Our Jack Sparrow to bungle us forward? Our coachman to show us death, poverty, and infermity? Our Morpheus to provide us with a red pill? Are we to provide our own impetus for change instead? What about the catalyst which occurs that jars the hero from the grooved path and throws him onto a path of trials and tribulations which will lead him to his destiny? Are we to create that as well? Is that what these stories are for? What happens when there is no mentor? No change? No trials? No destiny?
What happens when the hero has no story?

Zero Impact Living and other Flights of Fancy

I've recently taken to walking or riding my bike at least once a day, Monday through Thursday. I take Friday off to be able to do whatever pops into my mind, then for the weekend I work outside in the yard. I've gotten quite a bit done - it's almost unnerving how much of the landscaper I joke to myself that I've become.

When I was out for my walk today, i started thinking about a lot of different things. That's pretty much my favorite thing to do, you know - muse about the most random and sometimes most ridiculous things when I'm all by myself without a thing to distract me. And so, in this absence of books, movies, video games, and human company, I found myself thinking about this and that, until i came upon a more steady train of thought.

I really don't know why it stuck in my mind as a topic i should pursue, but i started wondering to myself about the plants of the desert. OH YES! I remember now! It was because as i was walking along, i noticed a particular kind of tree lining the sidewalk that i realized had also started sprouting up in my front yard, between the neighbor's fence and ours. We had been wondering about what it was, because it's quite "viney" in its early stages - not at all like a tree. The only reason I even realized what it was was that it had quite a few branches which were still more vine than tree, and the foliage was exactly the same.

Anyways! Seeing that tree almost immediately followed by a tall pine started a quiet inquiry in my mind about the nature of the different climates on the earth. I started thinking about the different geographical features that must exist to create a temperate forest where there might otherwise be a desert. It didn't take long to come to the same conclusion as i'm sure i must have slept through in fifth grade biology. (or whatever it may have been that i was so avidly daydreaming through)

Water. Not just any water, fresh water. Simple, right? I know. So I took that simplistic answer and tried to simplify it more: what is it about water that plants need? I thought immediately to humans and how our bodies are almost exclusively run on the water that we so desperately need to survive. I reasoned that, of course, that same need must drive plants. But then what happens to the existing water? Does it evaporate? Get excreted? It's a little easier to see in humans - i've personally never seen a hibiscus walk up to a brick wall and piss its initials.

I could go on for quite a while describing the minutia of my ADD brain farts, but i think i'll zoom out to give you a little more panoramic view.

Essentially, i ended up thinking about the plausibility of creating a grassy, temperate climate in the desert of Arizona. A place where fruits of any kind could be grown as if in their own home climate. I didn't think much on growing seasons, but it would have doubtless crossed my mind and taken another branch of meandering thoughts all on its own.

The caveat - but perhaps most important feature - of this Zero Impact Living zone, would be that it could not (with the obvious exception of the displacement of whatever sand and vegetation originally inhabited the spot) tamper with or alter in any way the surrounding climate and area. If rainfall were collected, an equal amount must be released beneath to account for it. If humidity were extracted from the air, it had to be replaced almost immediately and in the same place.

It could all be done, i conjectured, if the science of the functionality of nature - indeed the very building blocks of growth and life - were understood. Why water? Oxygen and minerals in, waste out. It has to boil down to something simple, after all.

Pan left and we follow the natural progression of these thoughts: What about people? If we could get whatever oxygen and other gases that our body needed through other means, would we still breathe? The scene in the Abyss where the mouse first breathes liquid air immediately popped into my mind, and was dismissed almost as quickly. I wasn't talking about breathing something else, like water or another gas. I was talking about not breathing at all. Would we feel like we were suffocating? Or just holding our breath?

I started thinking about what else we could substitute ... would it be possible to only subsist on a diet of pills to fill our chemical needs? If you could eat a pill that would give you all the calories and nutrients that you need without eating a single bite of "food", would you do it? What if it meant that no living thing would ever again be killed for or because of your nutritional needs? No plants, animals, or people? Sounds ridiculously impossible, i know, but bear with me. The question isn't whether or not this pill exists, it's whether or not you would be able to live on it.

I imagined never eating a salad again, or a steak, or cheese, or crackers, or chips, and i came to a fairly sound decision that it would be impossible for me. And if not for me, then certainly for quite a large percentage of the world's population.

What it all boils down to is that we are not happy just to survive. To merely eek out an existence and leave it at that. But why? Or more aptly, why not? What else is there, or should there be? Shouldn't it be enough to live and leave well enough alone?

This whole time that i'd been considering what would be possible with Zero Impact Living, or breathing without air, or eating without food, i'd been focusing on, (indeed practically abusing) that very thing which i was now denying we should have any need for: imagination. So i started wondering about what it is that makes us different from how we perceive animals to be - creatures existing on base survival instinct and a kind of informal ritual of eating, sleeping, excreting, and mating.

Like, for example, let's say I want a pickle. A lot of people will tell you that that kind of desire, or "hankering" will indicate that perhaps the pickle will fulfill some basic need that exists in your body. Maybe a lack of sodium? I dunno, but you see where i'm going with this. It's like your body is holding up its hand indicating what it needs, and your mind is holding a flashlight on the hand, projecting an image on a not so distant screen. What you end up thinking about is what's on that screen - whether or not it's what your body was indicating.

So what are we to do? Ignore the screen and look at the hand? Turn off the flashlight and try to let our eyes adjust to see what it might be we actually want? What would happen if we just did away with our creativity entirely and stuck entirely to the fax? "Just the fax, ma'am, just the fax." Ultimately the question that that seems to beg is this: What would be the point? What kind of life would that be?

When you think about life, the universe, and everything, what really is the point? If there's a grand scheme, we're not aware of it. So should we try to change the world? Why? If there's any one thing that's true, it seems to be impermanence - the fact that everything that is will once have been. It's not that life is suffering because all good things end, it's that life is fleeting, and that's that.

So i think about the goals i might dedicate myself to: wealth and hedonistic abandon? Why would that appeal if nothing lasts? Getting more only brings about wanting more, and having more things only makes you enjoy what you have less.

What about the future of the planet? Survival of the species? Scientific and medical advancement? No - to what end? If everything ends anyways then there's really no point. And even if it doesn't it's not like there's some major competition going on after which our species will be judged and awarded with some amazing and indescribable prize. Beyond that, if you apply the above rule about having and wanting, then all you do by advancing the species is make the species want or expect more. It's a vicious cycle that only ends in the same apocalyptic scenario as will most likely end up vanquishing even that vague conceptualization that we invented to measure our lives ... Time.

Kids? Same thing. They'll eventually pass on, so no matter how good you make their life, they'll grow old and live life just as you're doing now.

Family? Ditto. If it's all impermanent, the only thing we know is that we'll all end up in some great beyond, which could be the absence of all existence for all we know. (read: no afterlife)

So what does it come to?? Lay down and die, screaming "AAAAGH" whilst shooting your gun in the air?!

I think that, ultimately, the answer to that question is found in some ancient words of wisdom i have heard repeated so many times: 'to each his own.'

We make a mistake, i think, of either living too much for ourselves, or too much for "the greater good ... the greater good ... the gre -" ... sorry, got carried away. Between the extremes of simple survival, having everything we want, and giving everything to society (a complex and convoluted love triangle, to be sure) there has to be a point where everything balances out. Our job, if we should choose to label it as such, should perhaps be to find that point.

I wish i could tell you how to find it - but if i knew, i probably wouldn't have gone on this rant. Life may not be about finding your balance-point, but i think it's probably much more enjoyable once you've discovered not only how to get there, but how to stay there as well.

Joseph Campbell talks about finding your Bliss. The Buddha talked about Enlightenment. Jesus talked about corporeal death and spiritual rebirth. For some, such things are a life goal to live for - i hope that for me, i can reach that point with plenty of life left to live.

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