 |
| "OMG, how do you DO that??" |
If someone asks me how long I usually am awake per day, I'd have to say:
"Between 20 and 24 hours a day, and sometimes more!"
And if I say so (telling the mere truth with that!), I usually get some kind of reaction as shown in the picture here. Followed by sentences like "I could NEVER do that!" or "I would be DEAD within one week!" etc.
Well, the "sometimes more" part is more felt than proven (the clocks here at my house resists to display this hidden truth), but indeed I am on an extreme course, and at times, even I stop for a minute to ponder and wonder about that.
To sleep is, indeed, really precious for me. Basically the best moment of the day, considering the effort invested compared to the effect achieved, is the very moment I lay down in my bed. I heave a small and really contented sigh then, just releasing the feeling I have of getting an additional reward now, for those many wake hours before, and it really feels good. And I need sleep like any other being, too. But: It's only part of the deal.
The things that keep me busy until times each day when my neighbors get up again to start their day (while mine still hasn't ended) are nothing of global importance.
I do not guard any Red Telephones in order to save World Peace (or to push the Red Button in time, meaning a split second before the other one does ... although this has hardly to do with peace).
I do not achieve scientific results that will catapult mankind into a new era. I do not help out on building structures and things that will alter the face of the world, like bridges, or, let alone, walls.
I watch and share and rejoice in the creative output of people I know and like, sometimes also from people I have only just discovered. I write comments and give feedback. I receive messages and answer them. I talk with (not "to", I said that deliberately) people from many places over the phone, over Skype, and to the most part via YouTube messages or e-mail.
And I write stuff that, in one way or another, is important to me, and sometimes also for other people. Plus I produce my share of the amount of typos that is needed in the world every day, obviously (well you might call me a major supplier there, I guess), making texts involuntarily funny or questionable in so many ways, yet without disintegrating them. Can you call that a form of art? Not yet. But I'm working on it.
All these things are time consuming. Even writing this blog about this topic is. But I love investing ... No, wait.
And I love investing the amount of time needed for each and every single of these "things".
In the economical branch, you'd say "Money well spent". Well, the currency here, in this area of life I'm referring to at the moment, is, for sure, not being measured in Euros and Cents, or any other name for the bling-bling kaa-tchinggg stuff we use for making us happy (as well as terribly sad).
No.
So much that happens during my wake hours (and especially in the dead of night here at my place) is of unique and precious nature that goes far beyond any clumsy attempt to label it or, let alone, put a price tag to it / embed it into a profit and loss account.
All these things are much too heavy and bulky to handle, and yet, by far, too insubstantial to ever grasp them ... You can't see them, and yet they open your eyes .. They have no weight, and yet they can weigh you down and crush you ... They have no wings, and yet they can lift your spirits higher than the sun!
It's the energy of the soul, that pulses and flows in these hours, by doing all the stuff I do.
It rushes through the heart and rewinds it, so it gets the power it needs to bring me through yet another day. It streams through each and every fiber of my body and enables the bones and muscles in me to take and bring me to the places I need to be.
Sleep does have its part in replenishing this energy, that is needed to keep me alive; just like eating, drinking and breathing. But the contribution that sleeping can make for that is small. And it is not leading me into a state of mutuality that is needed (at least for me) to activate and enable an act and process of sharing with other human beings, with those of my kin - sharing the energy of the soul, and, by doing that, not cutting in half the amount that I have at my disposal ...
... but multiplying and intensifying it.
And this is what I need.
To come back to matter-of-factly wordings and nomenclature ...
In economical terms again, it is Anticyclical Investment. In terms of physics, it is the Counterweight. The more I lose, the more I invest. The more weighs me down, the more I muster to equal the balance somehow.
It is what is needed to bring me through yet another day. It's a vital need. It keeps me alive, and sane. Well, mostly. And I am grateful for everyone who is there and allows me to share the energy of the soul.
It's Give and Take. Every time. Always.
______________________________
.
