Friday, July 25, 2003

Brennen replies, in his usual wonderfully thoughtful way, and I think I agree with him on pretty much all counts. On the other hand, this is a very personal subject, and by that I mean not that it’s taboo, but that each person approaches it differently and has his or her own internalized version of it. It’s so internal that I ultimately can’t generalize about everyone’s experiences.

Though I don’t want to suggest that that terminates the debate. Everyone experiences the flu differently, but that doesn’t make it joyful.

For what it’s worth, my daily routine (and my Mom’s, now that I think of it) is a set of consciously designed algorithms. Perhaps not all of them in full, but the large majority of them and to the greater degree. :shrug: But perhaps that’s nowhere near as common as I thought.

I made a number of minor updates to the site, too many to remember. I’ve adjusted the layout of the pages; the sidebar on the right is now floating in space rather than confined in a black box. I think that un-clutters the page nicely. The images at the top were cleaned up, too.

My sleep patterns have stabilized, by the way. Four hours wasn’t quite enough, but six hours seems to be about perfect.

I’m still experimenting, though. For example, for a while I had a two-tiered wakeup system: My computer wakes me up with a rousing recording of In The Mood, then ten minutes later my radio switches on to the local Classical station for an hour. I timed it so that I could get to work on time even if I let the radio play for awhile before getting up.

Problem is, this had the effect of coddling me. I’d wake up to blaring trumpets, and would immediately think to myself: Eh. I’m groggy. I don’t want to get up. I’ll just wait for the radio to kick on. Then the radio will kick on, and I’ll think, Well, I’ll wait for this song to end. And before I knew it, I’d be late for work.

I changed all that. I turned off my radio alarm. That way, I had to get up with the blaring trumpets. And it’s good; I’m not wasting that half hour every morning.

I’ve also begun exercising in the morning, when I first get up. Now, I am not a morning person. I’m groggy and half-asleep when I get up. But I can walk outside, and I can run. So I do.

Why run in the morning, when I could do it in the evening (and was)? Because I’ve noticed that I’m much more attentive and “on the ball” after I’ve exercised. So, why not have that energy for my work day? Why slog through work when I could attack it?

It’s working, so far (except this morning, but that was partly due to a weird night previously). I feel more energetic, and I have something to give at work.