The Bird Cage (2012)
“Unfortunately, in many cases, the rule book goes way too far – it tries to tell people how to be instead of explaining what we’re trying to do. We need recipes, not rules.” ― Howard Behar, It’s Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I am far from being the most graceful person on the planet. I’ve fallen in front of presidents. I’ve tripped over red carpets. If there’s a cup of coffee near a white table cloth, I’ve spilled it. When I was young, my mother used to say I was like a bull in a china shop, which is why we never visited any china shops or anywhere else that tended to have a lot of glass. For myself and a lot of other people I know, that thing in our inner ear that keeps us level and helps us establish equilibrium doesn’t always work as well as it should. As a result, we go blundering through life, being especially careful when required to handle anything sharp or otherwise potentially dangerous.
What I’ve learned from my somewhat lop-sided life, though, is that being slightly off center, looking at life on somewhat of a tilt, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not every measure we take can or should be balanced because there simply isn’t enough detail or information or content to support the balance that everyone seems to think is necessary. Even a ship can have a bit of a list and still manage to sail its way into port safely. Being unbalanced isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is quite different.
The rule broken in today’s picture is that of balance, but it’s one where the circumstances create such strong leading lines that we might not notice at first just how uneven the image is. Note that there are two models. Ideally, each would be given an equal amount of space. They needn’t occupy the space in the same manner or even the same general position, but the space should be available to them. In this image, though, the model on the left is limited to the left third of the image. The panel trim on the wall behind her creates a very strong visual barrier that, at least as far as our eyes are concerned, holds her to that side of the space.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]However, one might also notice that the entire frame is a bit askew. The lines are not parallel with the horizon; they’re not even close. Our entire perspective of the scene is thrown off balance by the angle from which the image was taken. The uniqueness of the angle ends up being a strength that allows the unintentional division between the models to exist without making us want to move one of them.
Not that we had much choice. The picture is taken in an elevator built sometime in the 1920s. This is one of those small, residential elevators where one has to manually close the gate, then close the door, before engaging the lift. If the models appear uneven and off balance, it’s because the only way to get the shot was by lying on the floor, having someone out-of-frame hold open the gate, and praying that no one in the building would need the elevator before we got the shots taken.
Metaphors for life, anyone? There are some things that claim to be fair and balanced and intentionally are not; their claim to equality is an attempt to mask just how one-sided their view actually is. Other times, we look at something that appears to be off-center only to discover that our eyes deceive us because of the limitations of our perspective or the specific angle from which we view the situation. What we learn with experience, hopefully, is that balance is precarious and not always something that is even possible. Returning to the ship metaphor, even the largest aircraft carrier moves back and forth along the waves; sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left. That ability shift weight from one side to the other is critical to preventing the vessel from capsizing.
Balance is something our eyes like to see, but what appears to be is not always true.[/one_half_last]
Sleeping Through Sunday
I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any.—Mark Twain
None of us are sleeping as much as we should. Going back to bed may be the healthiest thing you do
I would dearly love to be sleeping right now, truly I would. Unfortunately, my body has conditioned itself to wake up at this ungodly hour, while everyone else is still sleeping, so that I can actually get some work done before the world starts getting noisy. As a result, to sleep even past 6:00 AM is a luxury rarely afforded these days. I’m not the only one, though. For the past four years, doctors have been warning that we’re not sleeping enough. Cases of insomnia are on the rise. Sure, there are sleeping pills that help some, but those also bring the chance of abuse and, in some cases, addiction. The problem isn’t just limited to the US, either. The whole world is having trouble sleeping.
What causes us to have so much trouble falling asleep and staying that way? There are a number of issues, of course, but the three most common to our contemporary first-world lifestyles are:
That third one, of course, is new, and largely limited to people in industrialized nations. In places where 24-hour wifi isn’t quite so prevalent, concerns over personal/family safety take the third spot, which is certainly understandable. In the US, especially, we have a problem putting down our phones even to sleep. Whether it’s playing some silly game, browsing the latest cat memes, or actually reading something worthwhile, we rarely turn off our phones. Making matters worse, recent studies indicate that the light emitted by our phones is bright enough that our brains mistake it for daylight so that the little trigger telling us to go to sleep gets turned off.
Such insomnia is not totally new. Throughout the twentieth century, there were plenty of things keeping our parents and grandparents awake at night. In the early part of that century, we feared becoming involved in a European war, so much so that we were almost too late to help, Then came the Great Depression and I’m not sure anyone slept much. Homelessness, poverty, unemployment, and hunger all have a way of keeping a person up at night. Then, from 1936 on, the threat of a second European war became a worry and those who remembered the first one were especially sleepless. The 1940s were a decade of war and no one sleeps well through that. Troops were back home for most of the 1950s, but the Cold War set in hard and the Red Scare had Americans wondering whether their neighbors and co-workers might be communists. Air raid drills were common in schools, making sure children didn’t sleep well, either.
By the 1960s, parents worried about war in Southeast Asia, violence around the growing Civil Rights movement, and an exploding drug problem. 1972 crushed our faith in government. 1974 introduced us to the worries of inflation. By 1979, we looked at the Middle East as our newest enemy and worried how to keep them in check. Fear of nuclear annihilation reached its peak in the 80s and we responded to any and every threat by attempting to outlaw it, sending more people to jail than the prison system could handle, most for non-violent offenses. By the 90s economics were again a major fear and this thing called the Internet threatened to change the very fabric of our society.
Society is too complex for us to not find things to worry about. My current personal list of immediate concerns is about 20 items deep, and that’s with me trying to be positive. I refuse to be pollyannish and say everything’s going to be alright. The fact that we’re not sleeping like we should is itself a warning that no, everything may yet go to hell in a handbasket.
So, why are we not sleeping through Sundays, every Sunday? I challenged my father on the topic more than once. If one is going to actually believe Old Testament mythology regarding creation, then one has to deal with the notion that, after six days of work, God rested. Throughout the Old Testament, he seemed rather adamant about that whole resting thing and to this day devout Jews struggle with the juxtaposition of secular demands to do things and their religious commandment to not do things on the Sabbath. Spending all day at church seems to me, still, as just as much a violation of that command as if one were working. One does not rest at church, at least, you’re not supposed to actually sleep through the whole thing. My father was never amused, nor moved, by that argument, though.
To me, it just makes good sense. Our bodies, and our minds, need a break. We fill our lives with so very much the other six days, we need a respite to allow our bodies to catch up, re-energize, and recuperate. We need scheduled time to laugh, to read fiction, to have pleasant conversations, to enjoy non-stressed company of friends who don’t care if the house is clean, to ponder, to appreciate. More than anything, we need to be sleeping.
Go back to bed. Chores can wait. Ducktape kids to the wall if necessary. You should be sleeping. Get to it.
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