what is a day? is it ~24 hours, and determined by the solar cycle outside? or is it a unit of awakeness and determined by whatever amount of time i want to exist in between flushes of r.e.m. sleep?
i've tended to lean towards the second definition for most of my life, and maybe that's part of the problem here - i'm trying to regiment myself and pushing back against myself for it. i can't even tell myself what to do, it seems.
this is how i lived when i lived on bronson in ottawa, but i kind of lost it when i moved to windsor and never fully got it back. i could never figure out how to get enough things done in the day, so i lived something like this:
- the day would start when i'd wake up early in the morning, well before work
- i'd spend a few hours doing things before work
- i'd go to work
- i'd stay up all night doing things - recording, writing, listening to music, etc
- i'd go to work the next day without sleep
- i'd fall asleep as soon as i got home, and wake up again early in the morning
i did that for years and it let me focus my energy on my life outside work, and just kind of drag myself through the work i didn't care about and just had to do to pay the rent, against my will. it was an ideal balance.
granted, i was also smoking a lot at the time, and nicotine is a stimulant. but, i can get over that.
thankfully, i don't have to go to work any more, but i could still benefit from a longer day if i want to get all this eating in without getting overwhelmed by it.
so, right now, i'm trying to get three meals in over 24 hours and continually failing to do it. what if i tried to get three meals in over 36 or even 48 hours, instead? i could even pencil in some time to sleep, if i decided to eat every 12 hours.
but, i think the benefit of this approach lies in jettisoning the schedules altogether. rather, if i allowed these three meals to exist in more of a freeform relationship with each other, i could allow for some variation in how long it takes to eat the three of them. if i'm really hungry, i could eat them right after each other. or, if i'm really focused and distracted, i could wait ten hours between them. what's important is that the next day doesn't start until each of these three meals have been worked out and i've slept some nominal amount as separation. relying on hunger rather than scheduling to determine eating habits is a key component to maintaining good health.
i've never been a schedule-oriented person, and i should have known i wasn't going to succeed in regimenting myself like this.
so, let's try that - let's try to maintain the basic breakdown and pull the day out a little, instead of trying to cram it all together and force it through.