I know some people revel in spending as much time in bed as possible. Listening to them talk about a good night’s sleep is like listening to someone describe their deeply held religious convictions. I have a slightly more utilitarian relationship with my bed; it’s a necessary evil that occupies one room on the house and I try to limit my interaction with it as much as possible. I’ve said it before, but I can’t quite shake the idea that sleep is just a enormous time suck that’s trying to eat up a third of the day… and there are always things I’d rather be doing that, you know, just laying around.

I do have to admit, though, that sleep does have one thing going for it; even though it takes up five or six hours, the time goes by fast. By that I mean there’s no sense that time is really passing. You fall asleep and bam, you’re waking up. Even when eight or more hours intervene between Point A and Point B, it feels almost instantaneous.

A good point of comparison is long haul flying, since even on red eye flights, I’ve never been able to get comfortable enough to actually fall asleep… Getting from the East Coast to LA or to London feels like it takes something just short of forever, even though it’s really only five or six hours (which conveniently for this thought exercise is about the amount of time I sleep most nights). Whether I’m flying across the pond or sleeping at home, the same amount of time passes, but one feels much shorter than the other. That’s for the best, of course, because if every night felt like it lasted as long as trans-continental flight, you’d never convince me that going to sleep was a good idea.

There’s not really a “so what” to this post other than time, our perception of it, and what it all means are topics that I currently find fascinating… and since I’m the proprietor of this establishment, it’s what everyone gets to read about today.