Polyphasic Sleep and Better Thinking

*pant pant*

Okay, this week I almost wrote a Wednesday post.  I actually did write it — Wednesday night — and then it mysteriously got eaten alive, whole and chomping.  Gone.  And here it is Saturday, and I haven't been able to replace it.

See, here's the thing.  New job (YAY) is a mostly-from-home gig, which I'm quickly learning is harder than an at-the-office gig in a lot of ways (many of the same ways that doing college course-work online was surprisingly harder than going to school, actually).  It's only been a few months, and I have a weeeeird commuter schedule with a lot of new stuff to get used to, plus numerous big family-changes and stuff, so thank you all for being awesome and cutting me slack; I've needed it.

I think I'm going to switch to doing my weekly updates (as you know, there are Twitters and periodic small updates whenever, but the weekly ones are — or are supposed to be — the substantive ones) on the weekend, if that's okay.  I just spend too much time in front of the computer on a weekday as it is, and I just don't think I can work in any more.  Look at Ye Olde Schedule now:

• bet. 4-5a:  wake up, exercise, write fiction
• 6a, 2-3x a week:  kungfu class
• bet. 7-8a:  nap
• 8:30a:  start work
• about 1p:  nap
• theoretically 5p, but more often 7p:  done with work
• 5:30 or 7p, 2-3x a week:  more kungfu/taiji/stuff
• after work/class until 9p:  parent
• somewhere in the 7-8p range, if I can:  nap
• 11:30p:  bedtime if I didn't get an evening nap; I buy another 1-1.5 hours if I did.  I spend that time reading or watching TV and making chainmail, or exercising if I don't feel like I've had enough that day.

…So I'm on this rotating E3-E4.5 schedule where "it depends" on if I get all of my naps, or if work or the kiddo steals one, how much sleep I get at night.  Sometimes I even only get one nap, and then I sleep 6 hours.  Sometimes I overwork myself ridiculously at kungfu or working out (remember how I wasn't much of a straight-up-working-out freak?  That changed, heh) and need extra sleep to heal something.  (By the way, ice, some Ibuprofen and extra water before bed, and whatever herbal or topical healing-stuff you like, plus 3 hours extra sleep is the BEST cure for pulled muscles and stuff.  I've no idea if it works when you're monophasic, so don't ask.  ;) 

And one week every month, now, I travel, and spend that whole week working a LOT and sleeping in temporary places.  I've still only done it twice, so I haven't figured out how I can nap when I'm out of town, but I absolutely do plan to figure it out, if I can.  In fact, now that I'm mostly working from home, I absolutely plan to see if I can set up an Uberman-friendly schedule.  OH HELL YES.  If it's possible, I'm so on it.  But I'm still way in the early phases of figuring that out, unfortunately, so there's not much to write about yet.

And while I'm home, I'm spending 1-2 hours typing in the morning, and then 8+ hours during the day doing this rather astonishing combination of texting, talking on the phone, emailing, technie stuff, and chatting (IM is a big way my department communicates, so it's pretty much constant).  After that, I simply cannot look at any of the three computers I use every day (uh-huh) after 9pm; I can't.  So I've basically given up all video-games (except for my Wii, which I adore on the odd chance I get time to play it) and dropped largely off the face of the regularly-updating Internet Planet for a while. 

Like, 40 of you good readers got email replies from me this morning, some of which you'd been waiting on over a month.  Seriously. Oh, and I've pretty much been kicked out of my SF-critiquing group, for nonactivity.  D'oh!

Anyway, this is your formal assurance that there are Plans.  To start with, regular updates will be returning, albeit on weekends.  Progress on the 2nd Edition of Ubersleep, which I left at about 2/3 done, will resume.  Somehow.  And I'll keep everyone posted on the details of my situation that are relevant to casing out a possible future Uberman opportunity, which, if I did it, I would do it right, including videos and daily notes and the whole shebang.  I'm busy as shit, but I remain hopeful — which, really, ought to be my motto.  I need a T-Shirt…

PD

Step one:  Stifle your ego sufficiently, then proceed.

Step two:  Disgorge soul.

As a longtime sufferer of depression (to start the conversation light & impersonal), I have a special hatred of advice that can be summed up as "Get Over It" — I've seen too many situations where that's impossible and cruel to suggest.  Yet as a philosophy nut I fully admit that such advice may sometimes be useful, though this doesn't dampen my eye-rolling, fist-shaking rage when it is.

The thing is, you really can't benefit from any good influences that are around you if you won't pay attention to them.  (I know, Buddha is an effing broken record sometimes.)  And you really can't pay much attention to them if you're busy being overwhelmed by how much you resent / are horrified by / hate people or deities for / wish you'd never encountered the past…or how much you hope for / are afraid of / are worried about some aspect or another of the future.  In this sense past and future are obstructions, to peace, answers, and help.

So when things hit a certain kind of deep-dug, long-term suck, "get over it" — in the sense of making a conscious decision to stop letting thoughts of past or future intervene, to shelve your ego and just do what's in front of you as best as you can — is sometimes, unfortunately, the best advice.

Step two point five:  Refine.

Don't fight the darkness;
Watch your flashlight.

Step Two point seven five:  Chit-chat.

So things are good here, work is great, family is great, arch-nemeses both corporeal and psychological are failing to destroy both…I took on the hundredpushups and twohundredsitups programs and they're awesome; been getting to class lots too, woot…sleep schedule is still Everyman 4.5 for now, but I travel more often now and it's monophasic then, due to not having set up a way to nap in Home #2 yet; but thank the gods for E4.5, even; it's a big help. 

How are ya'll?

Step Three:  Hit "Publish".

Step Three Point One (Optional):  Add Picture for Effect.

Stolen in its entirety from the marvelous jblaque's LJ.  I urge you to steal it too, because…well.  Yeah.

• Experts say that the Gulf's highly endangered sperm whale population is in serious peril, and the loss of as little as three females (by inhalation and/or ingestion of the crude and its fumes) could ultimately wipe them out forever.

• Whales are just one of the many endangered species facing total devastation.

• Several media outlets are now reporting that their access to the spill area is being "strangled off" by BP as the oil giant continues to suppress and/or misrepresent the truth about the magnitude of the disaster.

• Americablog reveals the serious, growing health hazards to those involved in the clean-up efforts (and, ultimately, thousands of people living along the coast).

• Energy expert Mark Simmons is just one among many who posit that nuking the site may be the only way to stop the gusher.

• Craig Medred covers the technology that the oil industry (most notably, BP) doesn't want to talk about.

• Gulf fisherman are now describing the event as "the apocalyspe" of their industry and way of life.

• Alabama and Mississippi – helplessly and hopelessly – await the inevitable.

• Independent scientists and researchers say it's not the oil at the surface that poses the biggest danger to our ecosystem, it's what lies beneath.

• NPR gives us a haunting (and horrifying) preview of what will forevermore be known as "The Summer of Oil."

• Meanwhile, BP's latest grasp at straws could make matters far worse than they already are.

• At least one Gulf fisherman – stricken by oil-related illness – has BP's number. We need 10,000 more just like him.

• Already facing more than 100 lawsuits, BP has wasted little time in shopping for sympathetic judges.

And finally – please read David Gergen's plea to President Obama to take command of the situation (including many steps the White House can take right now to help manage this nightmare).

P.S. Please pass these updates along in your LJ, Facebook, Twitter, etc. This very well could be the most important news story of our lifetimes. Don't let it die.

See, the thing is this: when people try to make you feel bad about something that you didn’t do to them, when people try to make you feel bad about behavior that has nothing to do with them, when people try to make you feel bad about behavior that never hurt anyone else, those people are showing you who they are. And who they are is small, petty, frightened, angry and threatened.

via this blog entry.

(The context here is slut-shaming, but I like it just as much without that restraint. This should be emblazoned somewhere, seriously. Like, say, on the driveway of every church.)

Letting Go of Attachment, from A to Zen | Zen Habits

Hi, Internet.  ::shuffles feet::  Look, I know I haven't called in a while, but, um, things have just been really crazy, okay?  Nothing personal.  We're still cool as far as I'm concerned…if you're still cool? 

::holds out apologetic flowers::

Wait!  All of this has meaning.   And from here, from the other side of six months of rampaging anxiety followed by the best kick in the face I've received from the Universe to date, I think — from the other side of a truly hellish week capped by two others of near-equal un-fun-ness; during which I'm not even sure if or when I posted anything, and I fear deeply for its quality if I did — from here, I'm finally starting to see the lessons.

Attachment is a huge one, and here's what I learned about it:  You can't fake detachment, nor gain it by telling yourself you have it.  If you wake up gasping because you're "worried" about what the future holds, that by itself is proof that you're attached to some version(s) of it, and building yourself up to suffer (very likely needlessly) if the thing you want doesn't happen.

The linked article has a good list of short thoughts on the practical actions that detachment actually requires, and does a lot to dispel the kind of mistaken thinking I was recently engaged in myself, such as "not thinking now is enough" and failing to "call myself out".  It also states right up front that detachment isn't a one-time thing, a jumper you can set and leave it at that.  It's more like dieting or exercising — something you have to make a conscious decision to work on every day.

As I recover from the craptacular disaster recently, I will try to remember that attachment is at the root of the suffering.  Things didn't even work out badly; if I wasn't so torn up about them not going the way I wanted, I'd probably be peach brandy by now.

From the article:

Call yourself out. Learn what it looks like to grasp at people, things, or circumstances so you can redirect your thoughts when they veer toward attachment. When you dwell on keeping, controlling, manipulating, or losing something instead of simply experiencing it.

Define yourself in fluid terms. We are all constantly evolving and growing. Define yourself in terms that can withstand change. Defining yourself by possessions, roles, and relationships breeds attachment because loss entails losing not just what you have, but also who you are.

Enjoy now fully. No matter how much time you have in an experience or with someone you love, it will never feel like enough. So don’t think about it in terms of quantity—aim for quality, instead. Attach to the idea of living well moment-to-moment. That’s an attachment that can do you no harm.

Go it alone sometimes. Take time to foster your own interests, ones that nothing and no one can take away. Don’t let them hinge on anyone or anything other than your values and passion.

Hold lightly. This one isn’t just about releasing attachments—it’s also about maintaining healthy relationships. Contrary to romantic notions, you are not someone’s other half. You’re separate and whole. You can still hold someone to close to your heart; just remember, if you squeeze too tightly, you’ll both be suffocated.

Practice letting things be. That doesn’t mean you can’t actively work to create a different tomorrow. It just means you make peace with the moment as it is, without worrying that something’s wrong with you or your life, and then operate from a place of acceptance.

Question your attachment. If you’re attached to a specific outcome—a dream job, the perfect relationship—you may be indulging an illusion about some day when everything will be lined up for happiness. No moment will ever be worthier of your joy than now because that’s all there ever is.

(Special thanks to atdt1991@LJ for the link!)

chikuru: How to add four hours to your day without bending space-time.

…From which I stole, with permission, this really cool graphic representation of the 3-hour Everyman Schedule.

(The article is a nice short overview, too, with some good and very diverse links.  Thanks, chikuru!)

So, for the sake of argument, say you suck at getting naps, for whatever reason.  Maybe the best you can do is to snag one in the early morning, and another sometime in the afternoon or evening.

Well, that's good enough for rock & roll, as they say.  With two naps a day, you can (if you're like me, I should say) sleep 4.5 hours at night and do just peachy.

It's not as time-saving as Everyman 3, with gives you several hours of extra morning- and evening-time; and of course it lacks all the mind-bending coolness of Uberman/Dymaxion.  You end up sleeping almost 6 hours in total, which is enough for some people monophasically (but not me), so it might not even actually save you any sleep.

But you can go to sleep about midnight and get up before five.  You trade a few tiny pieces of mid-morning or late-afternoon or whenever you nap, for being able to stay up later and get up earlier than most people — or rather, stay up as late as someone who stays up late, and get up as early as someone who gets up early.  So if you're like me, and you like having a little extra time both at night and in the a.m., it's awesome.

More info on Everyman 4.5 below the cut!

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As citizens, we care (or at least have a responsibility to care) about whether our governments are doing well or badly.  That responsibility is the flipside of our right to fix government organizations when we don't agree with what they're doing, or how.

We've been citizens for hundreds of years, so we're getting used to this process, to these rights and responsibilities, sorta.  But we've only been consumers for a few decades, so it's understandably still catching on that, hey!  That means we have a responsibility to know and care what companies are doing and how; and also a right to support the good ones and kill the bad ones!

A few for your consideration, then:

GOOD:

EZTakes.com is a movie-seller specializing in the "stuff you used to find only at the corner family video-store, before they went out of business", and they certainly do have a fascinating stock of odds, ends and weird stuff.  Even better, though, they have a clean, simply-designed website without a lot of privacy-violating crap on it, and they refuse to DRM their files, so the movies you buy from them (at great prices; many are even free) are guaranteed to work with whatever hardware, etc. you want to use them with. 

What *really* impressed me is their terms of service, which states, "we will not restrict your rights as a Consumer, including fair use…and if we ever try to, this statement takes precedence." 

Now that's commitment — contractually limiting your future activities to ensure that you mean what you say.

What if Facebook had done that with their initial promise to "keep your personal information private"?

BAD:

Speaking of terms of service, check out this doozy I ran into the other day:

Due to manufacturer policies, all packaged items with plastic clamshells, shrink wrap, special seals, or other types of packaging that sustains damage when opened are NON-RETURNABLE if the packaging has been OPENED or TAMPERED.

…Yes, that's right, this company (an online electronics seller called SuperBiiz) has a 30-day return policy, but it doesn't apply to anything that comes in packaging that you have to open.  Er, which as far as I can tell, includes everything they sell.

Sheesh.

Of course, it doesn't end there.  There are a veritable plethora of companies engaging in bad practices now — practices that limit, undermine or destroy your rights as a consumer (fair use, first sale, and the right not to be gouged or price-fixed against); or damage or deteriorate your rights as a citizen (i.e. your 4th-amendment right not to be searched without cause, or your freedom to criticize them in public forums).  There are also companies who openly do damage to our country or society, say by hiring workers overseas for sweatshop wages to avoid paying locals, or by allowing oil-spills and mining-accidents when it's cheaper than adhering to the regulations (and it is, believe me). 

I don't have to say that there's no excuse for what these companies are doing.  Capitalism and the free market is not an excuse; the marketplace has rules, like everything else, and breaking or bending them is cheating, and removes your right to earn a profit or to continue to do business.

The problem is that regulatory agencies aren't the best, or strongest, ways to enforce good behavior from companies:  Consumers are.

And I DO have to say, I think, that there's no excuse for consumers who shirk their responsibility to be knowledgeable and shop carefully — no more than there's an excuse for citizens who ignore what their government does, don't vote, or carelessly pollute their environment.  In both cases, citizens and consumers, we have rights, and the responsibility to be aware of and protect them.

Don't worry, it's not that hard. 

I haven't set foot in a Wal-Mart in fifteen years and look!  I'm still alive! 

(Yes, that was snarky.  But seriously, sometimes I feel like I have to say that to my fellow Michiganders, who seem to think that something like "not shopping at Wal-Mart" is just a huge hardship; like it's way too much to ask them to not save $0.03 on toilet-paper this week so that manufacturing can stay in the U.S. a little and people can stop being underpaid and discriminated against.  CRY ME A RIVER, yo.  You have a bumper-sticker that says 'out of a job yet? keep buying foreign!' but you claim it only applies to cars?  PUH-LEEZE. ;)

Hoo boy, Internet, if this makes absolutely no sense then please don't worry/send hate mail/decide I'm really a robot.  (If I were a robot I would call myself Peter Erlang.  ;)

Just think of it this way:  At least this post is on time.  Silver linings, yo.

Truth is, I'm so manic I'm surprised I can string words into sense at all; I mean, I can write, and in fact have been doing so compulsively, but as is common for these mental-spaces most if it makes no sense except in the sense that the 000000×0001B4:0080 data on a blue-screen does; I am the spider on drugs spinning crazy webs, sometimes while screaming, sometimes while thinking, "Whee!"  My word-faucet goes on full and yes, often there are very pretty metaphors or awesome ideas as a result, but nothing can actually be built in this phase.  More often it's about resisting the urge to knock everything down.

I want to mention that I say "manic" very carefully (well, as careful as I get now anyway) — I am not a sufferer of bipolar disorder, but I know several people who are, and I would never want to minimize what that's like.  But as with all things, there are bigs and littles; and I do have a lifelong tendency towards a bit of emotional instability, and I'm under pretty ridiculous stress (not again, but still; it's like the gods are laughing while they crank the volume and I try to figure out how high the dial goes…"23?? 24?!  25????") and trying to prepare for a change that's record-breakingly big for me, and…yes.  So the symptoms are very similar to the heightened states of people with other mood-disorders that also cause big swings.  I dream wild and fly out of bed when I wake; I go long whiles without food and then hanker after a box of donuts and a pizza; I get suddenly crumble-into-tears upset over something that just occurred to me and forget it ten minutes later.   Aren't you SO jealous of the people who live with me?

I am far, far more often depressed than manic; so in a sense having these big manic swings (this is the second, and the first was twice as long as a "normal" one) is sort of fun.  I do like the energy, when it's not making me act like an idiot.  Moreover I've had a lot of self-work on managing my brainstates and so I am not worried, not really, that I'll do anything super-stupid or dangerous.  I will just write lots of bad poetry and talk too fast and concoct huge schemes and massive catastrophes in my mind that I will then have to stamp down — symptoms like the urge to drive 90 miles an hour all the time, or spend lots of money at once, I can generally control.  (I have kind of raided Amazon.  But the damage is well within tolerable limits.)  Mostly I will stay near home and try to keep healthy and not make any big decisions while I'm feeling all COME ON, FALCOR, WE CAN TAKE 'EM! –and I will try to stay out of fights and confrontations, because they make me turn into Tank Girl while I'm like this.

Sometimes having a mind feels like having a very unruly pet.  Beast on a leash.  On the ugly side, it can be scary enough that we'll ignore it, try to block out its bites and peeing, its constant need for training and supervision.  Often we try to put leashes on other things so we can pretend our own rabid monkey doesn't exist:  men, tanks, snakes, churches — whatever we can feel the power of and feel in-control of.  Underneath, all striving and power-struggling may in fact be a helpless fear-reaction turning away from the out-of-control power that is the AUGH BRAIN WHAT THE HELL.

I'm going to go do pushups.  ;)

Very first thing I want to say:  Wow, were there some great comments on my recent "An Argument for Right Now" post!  That argument is one of the cores of my personal philosophy and one of the main reasons I chose, in the last few years, to align myself with Chan Buddhism and Taoism.  I've made that argument to friends and family and philosophers many times before, mostly provoking the "omg you really are a whackjob, aren't you?" face in return.  To have thrown it at the Internet, and to have so many people offer wonderful and intelligent responses, was a total gift.  Thank you, everyone!  I'm planning a follow-up post soon where I can address some of those excellent points directly, and pull some textual and historical references to support my claim.  Exciting stuff!

The other thing worth bringing up today is the magic of baking soda and salt.  Years ago, on an herbalist's recommendation, I put equal parts sea-salt and baking soda in a grinder and whirred it to a fine powder.  I had no idea at the time how massively useful this stuff would be, but after using it again this morning, I thought, "This is something the Internet needs to know about!"

The principle is ridiculously simple:  Salt is a powerful killer of most germs and microbes, and it also, while stinging quite a lot in open injuries, is a great pain-killer.  Baking soda is a strong base, so it neutralizes acid; plus it has a nice toning and softening effect on skin and hair tissue (which is why you can use it for shampoo and to scrub your face, as well as to soak in a bath with).  The combination of the two is fantastic for basically anything related to your mouth or sinuses, like so:

• If you have, or think you may be getting, any illness that involves your sinuses, put a pinch (just a pinch) of this mixture in your neti-pot, mixed into warm water.  It will kill germs like crazy and also soothe irritated nasal passages.  If I can make myself do this twice a day, there isn't a sinus infection / cold / etc I can't kill in three days, seriously.
   
• Similarly, if there's anything going on with your mouth or throat that involves inflammation, irritation, or infection, swish or gargle with a (slightly stronger) solution of the stuff for powerful painkilling and germicide.  Works wonderfully on swollen tonsils, cuts or injuries in the mouth (not open bleeding ones, because ow ow salt ow — though if you do have an open cut, this won't do any damage; it'll just sting), post-dental-work pain and swelling, etc.
   
• If your teeth are not in the best shape, this stuff is your best friend.  It doesn't replace toothpaste (if you have cavities or whatnot already, you need the fluoride), but it does something that, if you already have tooth-decay, is equally important:  It kills germs, better than alcohol, and brushing with it (while, as you can imagine, totally delicious) is much better at working it into the holes than swishing with mouthwash is.  A tooth with a cavity isn't the end of the world, even if it eventually breaks and falls out; but abscesses and infections are awful, and can even be life-threatening.

…And that's about all I've got today, EXCEPT for this wonderful poem I just ran across — I'll post it beneath the cut.  If you like it, you'll be really fascinated to learn who the author, Peter Erlang, really is…

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