“22,700 in 0.76 seconds…”

22,700 is the number of results that popped up in 0.76 seconds when I typed in “it gets dark too early” into Google just now.  It seems like I’m not the only one experiencing a negative emotion in regard to the cruel games that Daylight Savings Time plays with our biological clocks twice a year.  I know that in the dead of winter, no matter whether we use DST or not, the days are always going to be shorter.  In fact, statistics show that there is a correlation between less daylight (read: Vitamin D), along with colder weather I’m assuming, and a more stagnant lifestyle in the winter, leading to weight gain & depression in many people. 

Frankly, I’m not surprised by this at all as I’m sure none of you are either.  In the last week and a half, I can already tell you that when 5 o’clock PM rolls around (my normal time for going to the gym), I’m extremely hesitant to trek back out into the total darkness that has already set in (it starts to get dark about 3:45-4:00 here already!).  This of course contrasts with the other end of the day when the sunlight wakes me up around 5:30 or 6AM and I hop out of bed with no problem since my body thinks it’s already getting late!  It doesn’t hurt that I have no curtains on my huge 3^rd floor windows and I face the rising sun! 

At first, I thought this new schedule was great…I was getting up earlier than usual and getting started with my “work” by 7-7:30 at the latest.  I place the word in quotations because lately, my days have consisted of working non-stop on Ph.D. applications, which consists of requesting transcripts, scanning documents, sending files back and forth from professors and universities, creating and revising my C.V., writing essays, translating research projects, etc…you get the idea…basically not terribly fun, but fairly rewarding since I know I’ll be done with it all in a week or so more (my personal deadline is by Thanksgiving Day!!)  But, now that I think about it, with it getting dark at 4 o’clock, I’m really not getting done anything more than I was before…this because it seems like once it’s dark, I feel like the day should be over.  The biological clock thing I guess…we are creatures of habit, naturally inclined to STOP whatever work we’re doing when the sun goes down because without any man-made innovations, we would still be living the hunter/gatherer existence that humankind experienced for centuries.  Interesting that DST tampers with this even though in our modern society we are not hampered by lack of artificial light, right? 

Seems like yet another indication of the fact that as human beings, we tend to run away with our ingenuities and they wind up controlling us more than what we profit from them.  After all, how many different pills exist to help people sleep?  How many psychological problems exist that could be the result of sleep deprivation or over-exertion and stress?  If everybody quit whatever it is they had to do right when the sun went down and rested till the next glimpse of daylight, how much better off might we be?  Of course, we wouldn’t be as materially productive as we are now and the very idea of getting 12 hours of sleep every night is a laughable impossibility in our culture.  But for all our desire to return to all things “organic,” “natural” and (I hate the terminology) “green,” we seem to completely forget about this natural phenomenon that occurs every 24 hours that’s called a day. 

Could it be that it was created for a reason?  Could it be that we not only need 1 day of rest in 7, but ½ day of rest per day as well?  Something to think about…   

"La persistencia de la memoria" Salvador Dalí

"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.

-William Faulkner