Injunction: Skip a Night of Sleep

The Buddhists talk a lot about "getting off the wheel of birth and and
death" so that one might attain Nirvana and, if you're from the later
schools of Buddhism (and not those tight-assed Hinayanas--just kidding
guys!), come back to liberate all beings. But one need not need to
devote 2-3 decades to constant spiritual practice to recognize the
sheer absurdity and inherent Emptiness of all existence: just pull an
all-nighter instead.

When you keep yourself up through the next sunrise, two things happen:
1) the supposed "barrier" between days of the week becomes flimsy
indeed, and 2) you realize how ridiculous the whole consumer-capitalist
cycle of sleep-eat-work-fuck cycle really is. Not sleeping is a rupture
in the habitual pole-fluctuations we take for granted, a rip in the
waking-sleeping weave of life, a flirtation with the death of all
meaning.

Regarding 1): we humans maintain a coherent identity and role in the
world via our ability to make distinctions between Self and Other, This
and That, Inside and Outside, Day and Night, etc. Skip a night of
sleep, and you'll see how truly arbitrary these distinctions are, for
there is no true "night" as separated from a truly coherent "day". The
night time can be broken up (by my estimation) into 4 or 5 or even
endless completely distinct units, from the dusky hours of dinner time
through the peppy early dark night through the silent late night to the
beginning of traffic noise and birdsong at 4 or 5am. Likewise the day.

The point is that without the barrier of sleep for you to mark off one
day from the next, DAYS DISAPPEAR, and you're suddenly thrown into this
hazy eternity of ever-fluctuating continuums of light, noise, and
activity. I'm tempted to keep myself up for an entire week, just to see
how much I can fuck up my mental "feng shui" by doing this. (Staring at
oneself in a mirror for an hour+ is another one).

Regarding 2): last night I worked straight through the night until
about 10:30 this morning. At 7am I went to the local yuppie espresso
joint with an iPod and a notebook to write down some comedy bits and
make some IU sketches. While a large part of my impression was due to
the fact that through one lucky circumstance or another, I live a
rather non-traditional neo-bohemian techie lifestyle, I STILL felt a
little absolute disgust at all the furious activity of the people
there. I don't mean this out of malice: not sleeping seems to liberate
you from the ROUTINE we all accept and take for granted. Not sleeping
makes you see that this routine isn't an absolute imperative, but an
arbitrary choice or pattern (a kosmic/karmic groove if you will), a
line in the sand of eternity that helps us keep our lives organized,
but ultimately, falls prey to the Void like everything else. Seeing
through the illusion of this Sleep Wall is a liberating act: our
routines need not be such.

Days are not real, nights are not real, there is only this moment, or
whatever bullshit Zen interpretation you want to give to it. Now to
pour some tea.