The battle on the bed!

It tough to think when a part of you thinks ahead and thinks something convincing against what you think. I am pointing about the battle between part of you  thinking of “waking up” and the other part in  you which gives reasons against waking. Often these reasons are convincing enough to put the former part to rest before the alarm snoozes again. In my many experiences, those convincing reasons were revealed to be stupid as soon as I get over them and the hazy sleep.

The insight here is that the logical part of Me is completely put to sleep while I am sleeping and hence it just needs a reason which I assume to be convincing enough even if its devoid of logic. Therefore unless I have strong emotional reasons to sacrifice my ego in that virtual battle, I am going to be in slumber for a long time until the other part which wants me to sleep goes to sleep and helps me wake up on my own.

 

I have been loosing this battle for a long time and my current wake up time hovers around 8:30 AM and it should be 6:00 AM for a normal life in my life! A lot can be said about your life on how you wake up everyday! The first thought which comes to your mind on getting up reveals more about your tone of the day! And remember its that first thought which gets you out of the sleep and there is no way for you to fix that thought. Its an automated thought which is a function of your past life and your sleep!. If you have a strong first thought, then its easy to beat the other part of you , who wants you to be in slumber!

On sleep and wakeup();

There were nights where I felt which was longer than nile when I couldn’t get in to that unconscious state called sleep even hours after attempting to enter. There were also nights where I entered the world of dreams without losing any time. There were nights when I lay down consciously dreaming about the beautiful life I live, and lost in to sleep without knowing when I got drifted. There were nights where I wasnt aware that its dawn already because I was in to something which removed my thoughts from everything else.

There are mornings where I kick out like a kid with the rising sun, just moments before it with a smile and scream “I beat you dear sun” and say cheers to you with a walk and coffee! There were mornings when I knew what to do after being up even hours before the sun.There were mornings when I was hours before the sun and dont know what to do. There were mornings where the sun woke me up through its shines. There were mornings where I woke up only when the fan gets turned off by power cuts. There were mornings which I wanted to pretend as nights by shutting the windows and getting buried in the blanket. There were mornings which I cursed the sun for coming sooner and resisting to open the eye! There were mornings where I saw the sun only after it was noon!

And various combinations of such mornings and nights makes my days. And I know how good my day is by just looking at how good these mornings and nights are! No one knows for sure what happens when we sleep but this beginning and ending of sleep and everything in between reflects your stature and poise as a person! Its a feedback mechanism by which you can learn on how good you are  at living life.

I see dogs which can sleep in peace on a platform and I have been that poor dog who couldnt sleep well even on a luxurious room in a hotel. All I wish in life is a good sleep! I will take whatever measures it demands and pay whatever it costs! “Buy the best bed you could afford”!

Bird watching

Being in the seventh floor, I not only get a bird’s eye view of the landscape but also the pleasure of watching the birds flapping and floating in the air. You must have seen cohort of birds moving uniformly in the air, it was one such sight except the birds decided to move in loops. I was surprised on how these little things could start from a point, travel a little far, chose a turning point and return to the point where they started, for it definitely requires coordination with each other.

Instead of watching the flock I concentrated on a single bird and there was a bigger surprise in store. The bird I watched, had no clue about the flock and it was just flying around and around in a  random direction, even after the flock has returned to the starting point. I gave it the benefit of doubt and classified it as an exception and moved to another. Voila.. All the birds I singled out were in random motion but if you watch them as a unit it appeared like a uniform motion.

That uniform motion is just an illusion caused by the fact that we cannot distinguish individual birds. Contrary to what I assumed the birds never maintain that relative distance from them since each one travels at a different speed and direction. But it appears to be uniform, because in a flock when a bird gets forward, its spot is taken by the one behind and our eyes don’t detect this unless you pay attention to individual birds. So as long as the proportion of birds joining the flock is equivalent to the birds leaving it, for us mortals – the count in the flock remains the same. As individuals they are just carrying out a random motion. But as a collective unit they are well behaved and get around in an admirable uniform motion. Another point to note is, there is no leader bird to guide striving to maintain this uniformness. Every bird is as bad as the other, but as a group they are good.

Now I compare this with the buzz words of today .. Collective intelligence/Wisdom of the crowds..!! There is even  a branch of computer algorithms which try to mimic such herd behaviors and accomplish  useful tasks. Where does intelligence/wisdom emerge from these group of illiterate individuals.? Can we compare our neurons to that of birds  and our actions and thoughts to that motion of the flock?

A little more contemplation on it, I felt like our life is one long chain of random events which doesn’t make sense at any instant but if you look back at the chain you can always make out sense even if it isn’t originally there.