« Why Paris and Britney?, Ctd. |
Main
| Mind The Gap »
31 Jul 2008 10:54 am
Against Sleep
By Patrick Appel
Jenny Diski suggests obviating sleep:
As chief scientist in charge of making the world a better place, once
I’d found a way of making men give birth, or at least lactate, I’d
devote myself to abolishing the need for sleep. Apart from the dangers
of letting your guard down, there’s the matter of time. Instead of
trying to extend the life of human bodies beyond their cellular
feasibility, the men and women in lab coats could be studying ways to
retrieve all the time we spend asleep. A third of our lives, they say –
and that probably doesn’t take the afternoon nap into account. Even if
we died aged what is these days a rather youthful 70, finding a way to
stay awake would increase our functional life to the equivalent of 93.
And if we happened to live to 93 then we’d effectively be . . . oh,
even older. Plus the nap time. Sleep, we’re told, is essential,
repairing the wear and tear on body and mind, but sex was once solely
for the purpose of propagating the species and we pretty much found a
workaround for that biological constraint.
(Hat tip: 3QD)
Share This
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451c45669e200e553deca0c8834
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 'Against Sleep'
