It’s pretty simple math, really.

Take a normal day. it’s 24 hours, right? Then we need to deduct a bunch of non-negotiable/invariant time

1. sleep: let’s assume you try to sleep 6 hours
2. you can’t possibly get ready for the day in less than half an hour, so 0.5 hours
3. your morning commute. let’s say 30 minutes, so 0.5 hours

We’re already 7 hours in. It’s not even sustainable to be sleeping just 6 hours everyday, you might be getting more like 7 hours on average (including your weekends)
Also - realistically, your commute is going to be about an hour one way. (unless you’re some rich fuck living closer to work, assuming you work an office job in the central city)
A half hour isn’t really enough for the body to fully wake up to the point of being able to cook and eat breakfast. You’ll either end up burning yourself with the pan, or vomiting out your breakfast later (trust me, i’ve had both happen on a regular basis), so it’s more like an hour to get ready in the morning.
So for a lot of normal folks, that’s 9 hours

4. lunch, give yourself an hour. a proper lunch break. 1 hour
5. commute back home - another half hour
6. dinner - 1 hour
7. bathing/hygenic stuff - 1 hour

So that’s 10.5 hours gone for the best case scenario, but more like 14 hours for the normal person.

Kind of funny how my last workplace expected me to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. Maybe not that funny.

I’m having one of my most restful days in a few years right now. I got an electric muscle stimulation machine (it is NOT a sex toy) recently, and it’s helped me get rid of a bunch of muscle strain.

So, back to the schedule: where exactly in that timeframe do you have ANY time to really sit down, and think about things?

Yes, you can think while you’re eating… but you’re eating. Eating is pretty distracting.
While bathing? Well… that’s not going to give you time to shave your legs or really shave anything (trust me - I went without bathing for weeks on end) (ok you didn’t need to know about that) (editor’s note: I didn’t shave my beard/moustache either) (note: it did not look well on me)
In your commute? I tend to be bothered by the random people slamming their elbow into my stomach from the side because I’m so fucking fat, or the ones giving me a look because I take 25% more space than them - just in width. In volume? I’m twice their size. I will sit, however, because my legs can’t support my weight. (I’m clinically obese).

So when one day, without thinking much about your life - and also being surrounded by people who want you to shut up and do what they say - you end up deciding to think, or there comes a mental necessity to think, what might your body do? Will it:

• stop time so you get enough time to think?
• scold you in your brain for even thinking of thinking about yourself?
• lobotomize itself?
• stop doing anything until you give it enough thought?

Some options are less likely, others are more likely.

I experienced the one where the body stops doing anything until you give it enough thought. Repeatedly. A few times across these last 10 years. Like at least 5 times. For at least a month each. Yeah, I’ve had it pretty fucking bad.

It’s wonderful how the body attempts to regain agency, to reinstate its own humanity, in possibly the most dysfunctional way. It’s kind of toxic, really - assume your social self is a passenger in a vehicle consisting of your body and mind. Your social self cannot project itself on “reality” unless the body and mind function.

When this social self, driven by external factors or simply it’s own ego, overextends and forces the body and mind into a mode of operation that is not necessarily sustainable - it makes sense that the body will attempt to correct the course.

Most importantly - it tries to get sleep. I’m in that stage right now, where the body wants so much sleep that it’s almost impossible to do anything really productive. It’s also probably because of my new psychiatric meds, but whatever.

It does make sense. You barely sleep for months on end, doing things that don’t really necessarily mean anything to you, and one day, your body forces itself to get sleep by completely shutting off access to dopamine or serotonin, or whatever the hell is chemically responsible for motivating you.

Gone. Shut off. Out of order.

Then as you get more sleep, the body starts to want to figure out how it can entertain the passenger, the social self, to keep existing - because the messaging surrounding the passenger is not… very nice to people who get a lot of sleep.

It urges you to make more money, to spend more money to look better. to have sex, to buy cars, to buy houses, to have even more sex, to spend even more money, to spend money to maybe get even more money, and so on.

Nothing out there is about you feeling better. Cigarettes and alcohol consumption are also rampantly advertised, but that only makes you feel better.

If there’s an actual ad for getting actual therapy and psychiatric help - hooray, that might help. But in the end, going to therapy and getting people to tell you things, or going to the psychiatrist to get yourself meds, only helps to a certain degree. In the end - you have to get sleep.

So - looking back. 8 hours of sleep is more realistic. You are now down to 9 hours to do anything. Also, if you watch any TV or use social media at all, or really try to entertain yourself in any way - that’s another hour. So you’re down to 8 hours.

8 hours… is usually how long work takes. So you’re kind of… yeah, you don’t really have much time to do anything. Like at all.

For me, right now - that sleep number goes to 11 hours. I don’t know, I probably need even more help, but at least I’m starting to feel more stable.

Yeah. I’m alive, not very well, but alive. My bank balance is running low, so I’m not sure if I can continue to afford any sleep. It’s tough because you can skip dinner, skip lunch, or survive only on Calorie Mates (I’ve done this before for about a month, while calling it “Metal Gear 3: Snake Eater living”, it was awful), skip bathing (I still do this and it’s becoming a problem, yes I’m very undateable), and still you won’t have enough time for sleep.

It’s quite debilitating, you know. But sleep debt seems to be a real thing. The only thing you can do for debt is somehow repay it or declare bankruptcy. The declaring bankruptcy part is a bit… dark, to talk about here, so let’s figure out how to slowly repay the sleep debt so my brain doesn’t want to find someone and beat them up, just because it’s short on sleep and can’t tell between friend and foe.