Blog Dis
The slippage of time
2025-05-22
It seems of late my sleep debt is slowly being whittled down to a manageable level. I attribute this to eyeing my cozy bed much early than before, heading off to slumberland between 9:30 - 10 PM during the work week, and on the days when I'm beyond exhausted, I'll head to bed earlier. Pillows, too, are vital and I searched for years before I found just the right pillows; ones that can be regularly washed and thrown into the dryer, and are made from a microfiber that is hypoallergenic for those with sensitivities to allergens, but also because they are less likely to be made a home by dust mites and mold.
Like a crazy person, I get up at way too early only because I learned that if I squeeze in my work-out in the early morning hours, I'm inclined to be consistently discipline, rather than hold off until the end of the day. In summer too I wake up @ 5 am (like I said... a crazy person), because this way I can squeeze in a morning cycle of one hour before work, and after the work day has ended, I can then to head out cycling a second time for 1.5 hours. Summer evaporates like water droplets in the air on a hot day. I have to make the most of summer, have to pack as much living in as I can before the darkness of winter arrives with a vengeance. Maybe it's me. Maybe i's the time of year. Maybe it's the snow and cold that tantalizes the narcoleptic in all of us to want to remain buried under warmth, to sleep in, to go to bed earlier when it's dark outside, only for summer to arrive with the sun staying out even longer. None of us wants to be in bed early.
Going to be early, however, doesn't apply to everyone, and I'm referring to artists, to my mind, who are a mercurial lot. Our extreme sensitivity to the world around us, makes of junkies to absorb it all, to want to stay up late, which is in fact my default setting. When I don't have to obey a regular work week of 8:30 am to 5 pm, I'll remain up much later, until the early morning hours, and then push the boundary for sleep into the later morning. Getting up early was never coded into my blueprint as a human. However, and if I attempt to obey this preference, I'll throw off my sleep entirely, and incur a whole new sleep debt.
There are financial debts which place a burden on your mind, and create more worries, and then there are sleep debts, which impact your entire being and how you think. But with age comes wisdom, apparently. This is an obvious expression. All to say, I don't shy away from sleep. I certainly have little to prove to the world that I can stay up very late and forgo sleep. Now, I recognize its curative effects are astounding and my writing is immediately impacted if I'm sleep deprived. If I'm in the company of like-minded persons who also fancy themselves as artists, I can be inspired engaging in dialogue on a stimulating subject. And it's not just talking but observation which is integral to the collection process of thoughts, ideas, and creativity — all these insights and thoughts are filed away for a later date when they'll be subconsciously recalled for whatever reason, to weave a new character or write a new poem, or to begin a new whatever - a painting, a song, a joke, a short story. I'm indebted to these moments and to the people and their peculiar way of getting about in the world.
My sleep, well this is critically important to my well being and to my artistic nature because when I sleep, my mind is wandering, re-examining, turning things over, pulling up memories from the past, and acquiring new things. I just may not necessarily be aware of what I've collected in dreamland for later use. I hear too that spicy food ingested just prior to bed is good for you, and it gives you vivid dreams.
I've known couples who sleep in separate bedrooms and this makes perfect sense to me. Our sleep is this important and if a bed-mate is the reason why you're not sleeping well, or perhaps you're the reason why your bed-mate isn't sleeping well, then how can it possibly hurt to sleep in separate rooms? Too often, we confuse intimacy with sleeping in the same bed. I personally believe that the time apart from each other will help to ignite those fires. And if coitus is as important to you as you believe, then why not partake at leisure, in either bed, and afterward you can return to the sanctity of your private sleep area? The only issue I can see with this plan is whose sheets will be made wet by your nightly passions? A third bed, solely for coitus, is the answer! A third bed means maybe two beds in one room, or two rooms; each with their own bed. Or, you can run with three bedrooms!
"To sleep, perchance to dream." [from Shakespeare's Hamlet; part of the soliloquy 'to be or not to be' and its meaning is about the linkage of sleep with death, and how none of us knows where we'll go when we sleep, what dreams we'll have, or even if we'll wake up the next day.
Sleep is a doorway to the past, present and future and like time, sleep will either slip away from you or you can wrestle it to the ground and throttle its throat.
Like a crazy person, I get up at way too early only because I learned that if I squeeze in my work-out in the early morning hours, I'm inclined to be consistently discipline, rather than hold off until the end of the day. In summer too I wake up @ 5 am (like I said... a crazy person), because this way I can squeeze in a morning cycle of one hour before work, and after the work day has ended, I can then to head out cycling a second time for 1.5 hours. Summer evaporates like water droplets in the air on a hot day. I have to make the most of summer, have to pack as much living in as I can before the darkness of winter arrives with a vengeance. Maybe it's me. Maybe i's the time of year. Maybe it's the snow and cold that tantalizes the narcoleptic in all of us to want to remain buried under warmth, to sleep in, to go to bed earlier when it's dark outside, only for summer to arrive with the sun staying out even longer. None of us wants to be in bed early.
Going to be early, however, doesn't apply to everyone, and I'm referring to artists, to my mind, who are a mercurial lot. Our extreme sensitivity to the world around us, makes of junkies to absorb it all, to want to stay up late, which is in fact my default setting. When I don't have to obey a regular work week of 8:30 am to 5 pm, I'll remain up much later, until the early morning hours, and then push the boundary for sleep into the later morning. Getting up early was never coded into my blueprint as a human. However, and if I attempt to obey this preference, I'll throw off my sleep entirely, and incur a whole new sleep debt.
There are financial debts which place a burden on your mind, and create more worries, and then there are sleep debts, which impact your entire being and how you think. But with age comes wisdom, apparently. This is an obvious expression. All to say, I don't shy away from sleep. I certainly have little to prove to the world that I can stay up very late and forgo sleep. Now, I recognize its curative effects are astounding and my writing is immediately impacted if I'm sleep deprived. If I'm in the company of like-minded persons who also fancy themselves as artists, I can be inspired engaging in dialogue on a stimulating subject. And it's not just talking but observation which is integral to the collection process of thoughts, ideas, and creativity — all these insights and thoughts are filed away for a later date when they'll be subconsciously recalled for whatever reason, to weave a new character or write a new poem, or to begin a new whatever - a painting, a song, a joke, a short story. I'm indebted to these moments and to the people and their peculiar way of getting about in the world.
My sleep, well this is critically important to my well being and to my artistic nature because when I sleep, my mind is wandering, re-examining, turning things over, pulling up memories from the past, and acquiring new things. I just may not necessarily be aware of what I've collected in dreamland for later use. I hear too that spicy food ingested just prior to bed is good for you, and it gives you vivid dreams.
I've known couples who sleep in separate bedrooms and this makes perfect sense to me. Our sleep is this important and if a bed-mate is the reason why you're not sleeping well, or perhaps you're the reason why your bed-mate isn't sleeping well, then how can it possibly hurt to sleep in separate rooms? Too often, we confuse intimacy with sleeping in the same bed. I personally believe that the time apart from each other will help to ignite those fires. And if coitus is as important to you as you believe, then why not partake at leisure, in either bed, and afterward you can return to the sanctity of your private sleep area? The only issue I can see with this plan is whose sheets will be made wet by your nightly passions? A third bed, solely for coitus, is the answer! A third bed means maybe two beds in one room, or two rooms; each with their own bed. Or, you can run with three bedrooms!
"To sleep, perchance to dream." [from Shakespeare's Hamlet; part of the soliloquy 'to be or not to be' and its meaning is about the linkage of sleep with death, and how none of us knows where we'll go when we sleep, what dreams we'll have, or even if we'll wake up the next day.
Sleep is a doorway to the past, present and future and like time, sleep will either slip away from you or you can wrestle it to the ground and throttle its throat.
