90 Days of ILP

Fine, readers, I'll keep blogging ;)

One thing I'm trying to do lately is to get up early every day, which, for a pathological night viper, is tough tough tough. So, as part of my Body Module, I'm going to give it a whirl, thanks in no small part to Pavlina's How to Become an Early Riser (which itself has reached Lazy Sunday-levels of viral memery).

The technique itself is fairly simple: you just get up at the same time every morning, no matter what. Sooner or later this will train your body to get tired when it knows it will get enough sleep between that moment and your standard waking hour (which for me will be 8 or 9am, which is early). The key is to get up at the same time, no sleeping in! This way you never oversleep, and only go to bed when you actually need to, which may vary depending on the day, meaning: you always get the exact amount of sleep you need! Or so the theory goes.

The real problem, for me, is motivation. Working until 4 or 5 in the morning has been a badge of honor for me over the past decade, and I am addicted to the silence, solitutude, and freedom that my nightly sojourns provides. When the rest of the world wakes up, I go to bed, proud of the fact that I have never been suckered into the 9-to-5 lifestyle.

And so, to keep me pumped up enough to attempt this massive shift in lifestyle, I've come up with three reasons:

1. Sense of well-being: What scant experience I've had in getting up early has taught me one thing: there's something magickal about being "aligned" with the circadian rhythms and the cycles of the sun. You feel more productive, restful, and you get to be wide awake for one the more aesthetically-pleasing parts of the day.

2. Solidarity with humanity: I had a similar reason for giving up veganism. In short, if I'm going to be a writer/artist with something of relevance to contribute to humanity, it might help to be awake when everyone else is awake, see them outside, breathe their car exhaust, and share space. It's isolating enough just to be an artist, but an artist who works the graveyard shift is tailor-made for ultra-elitism.

3. To have a routine: I'm less sold on this one, but nevertheless... I'm sure I'd benefit from some more structure. Being beholden to the whims of a certain bald philosopher makes it hard to establish any sort of routine, not to mention being enabled in my pathological use of "flex time", makes it a bit hard to have any sort of feeling of control over one's life. But, in the words of frog novel-writer Gustave Flaubert, "Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."

Anyways, that's where this new additional practice to my Body Module stands. Wish me luck. And, uh, no coffee.