Sleep is the best meditation.
~Dalai Lama
I. Am. Tired. I barely had the energy to convince my fingers to pry apart my laptop (no, I’m still in the library, I just thought I’d mix it up), and begin typing these letters that you see now. Maybe it’s due to my lack of sleep. Maybe it’s due to my abundance of being awake. In either case, I could use a pillow. And a story from my mom.
But it got me thinking: what if we never needed to sleep? Would our lives be better? Would that extra one third of our existences be spent for good? For discovering cures? Inventions? Resolution of human misery?
Probably not.
In fact, if this sudden awakening (awful pun sadly intended) did come true, we’d probably all burn the world down. But a least the flames should provide some warmth.
For instance, if I didn’t need to sleep, here are some of the first things that came to my mind: I would be able to party all night long; my homework would keep getting pushed back and back…and back; I would consume my body weight in food every night; I would gain my body weight in weight; restaurants would be open 24 hours a day (maybe I’m tired and hungry); I might finally be able to beat my brother at video games; maybe I would write more.
So as you can see, not one of those activities involved the betterment of the human condition (especially the last). And I like to think of myself as somewhat of a moral guy. If everyone were permitted this luxury of no sleep, I can only imagine the alcoholism, debauchery, and gluttony that would ensue. The world would become one giant college campus.
Granted, after this spike of disaster, the dust would probably settle and the remnants of humanity could probably use this boon of time for good. But until then we’d just have to suffer through/enjoy the consequences. I’d be willing to go through that.
Granted, I wouldn’t be able to dream any more. There’d be no pleasure of laying down for sleep. I wouldn’t be able to forget my problems for 8 hours. But even still, if I had 33% of my day back in my control, I’d be doing a lot more cool things.
Well, at least I’d be writing more entertaining blog entries.
Sleepily,
jdt