I'll Work When I'm Dead

Why is the pleasure derived from napping inversely proportional to the opportunity to nap?  O, Irony! Cruel mistress!  Callous lover! Friend without benefits!  How you do rear your fearsome head!

Today's "Duh" report reveals that well-rested workers--those who get enough sleep, have the opportunity to nap, and take longer vacations--are productive workers.  In other news, pandas are considered "adorable" by more than 60% of adult females.

Maybe that explains why my students fall asleep in class: They're trying to increase their productivity!

Personally, I love napping, but it always takes me a good hour or so to wake up fully from one.  And that's no matter how long the nap is.  Maybe I'm not doing it right.

Of course, if vacations and sleep make people more productive, then shouldn't the most productive people on the planet be the retired?  Or, y'know, the dead?

. . .And It Was All a Dream

You ever have dreams where you wake up and think you're awake but you're really just dreaming that you've woken up?  That was my morning.  It was Saturday, so I was able to sleep in, which was lovely, but I kept dreaming that I was waking up.  Let me tell you: That gets your day off to a strange start.  For an hour or so after I got up, I kept making sure that I was actually awake by sticking my hand in a waffle iron.  After the sixth or seventh time I did this, WOS--who by now was sufficiently convinced that something was up aside from my "normal behavior"--asked what I was doing.  She pointed out that I could probably just pinch myself and achieve the same assurance of consciousness.  By this time, though, I was fairly convinced that I was, in fact, awake, and after a quick jaunt to the emergency room, I was able to get on with my day, including writing today's "Solipsist."  Now, time for a nap!

The 24/7 Rat Race

Today's Times featured a front-page story about high-flying traders--you know, the type who destroyed the world economy a few years back--who get up in the wee small hours of the morning to get a jump on the day's trading: They don't want to sleep through the opening bells in the euro zone, you see.  I imagine some of these folks probably alter their sleep cycles to keep pace with markets in Asia.

Does it make me a bad person that I take some satisfaction in knowing that the sleep debt these guys--and they are mostly guys--rack up will probably lead to a great deal of personal suffering and, perhaps, premature death?

Turn off your Bloomberg terminals!  Go to sleep!  Maybe you'll dream of a way to do something productive with your lives!