Talk Talk Talk Talk Talk Myself to Death: Just a Couple of Things

Monday, December 17, 2007

Just a Couple of Things

I need more time. No, that's hardly a new realization. I've been well aware of this for a while, now. I have a combination of too much that I want to do and too much that I have to do. Unfortunately, there's not as large of an overlap between those two things as I'd prefer. I'm already giving up sleep to try to fit everything in. And, oddly, that provides a lead-in to what I was going to mention today. I heard NPR's science personality, Ira Flatow, on Bob Edwards Weekend last week. That's a show that's broadcast on NPR but produced by PRI and features a host that was fired by NPR a few years back. I need more time because I heard this last Sunday but I'm only getting around to writing about it now. For now, you can get a podcast of that hour, but I don't know if they might replace it soon with a segment of today's show. Anyway, Flatow had a couple of interesting points, including the fact that we need six hours of sleep to be able to retain whatever we learn in a day. If that's true, it's very sad for me. I must be years behind in my learning by now. Six hours of sleep has become a luxury for me, but I'm sure that it means that I'm operating well under my peak capabilities when I'm awake. And now I discover that I can't learn anything new, either. You may be able to find out more about that here, which appears to be the segment of Flatow's own show that covered the subject back in 2000. I haven't had time to download and listen to the segment yet myself. Another interesting tidbit Flatow offered up is the fact that noted anthropologist and primate researcher Jane Goodall believes in bigfoot. I don't know that I particularly have anything to say about that, but I find it fascinating. There may be nothing to various bigfoot or sasquatch sightings--or any other cryptozoological creatures--but I find the openness that Goodall's attitude demonstrates to be quite hopeful, and it fills me with optimism.

3 Comments:

At 1:11 PM, December 17, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have pondered many solutions to the too-little-sleep dilemma, only one of which is getting more sleep, which would only cause me to get less sleep later because I would have to do all the things I didn't get done while I was sleeping.

Other solutions:

1. Learn how to want to do less things (like watching movies or reading at night)

2. Develop a lost-sleep pill that will provide all the benefits of sleep without the sleep

3. Train myself to be one of those people who only needs 4 hours a night. Currently, I consider this my best hope.

 
At 7:25 PM, December 17, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I believe I don't get the proper sleep because I do not want the day to end. This is not some pie-in-the-sky, optimism, rather a sense that I have squandered the day and if I go to bed I have surrendered to those evil forces that keep me from productivity. On the other hand, I think the later I stay up the more likely I am to get started with the responsibilities at hand--no, it's just called being lazy.

 
At 8:50 AM, December 19, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Three bros in a pod.

 

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