Thoughts on Sleep and Early Risers

"For a long time I used to go to bed early."
Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

Early to bed, early to rise. That's something grandma would say, but now I would consider it an old saying for Office zombies, those who work themselves to death. Hopefully after their inevitable burn out, they would rise from the grave and finally have a night life, well something close to a social life either way.

For a long time I used to go to bed early, I would say that would be fifteen years ago in grade school where you had to wake up to catch the school bus. Now as an adult on my own sleep terms, that has been something elusive, I never get to sleep at all, I stay up all night hoping and waiting for sleep. If I do lie in bed, my mind races with the day's demons. It takes time for me to really feel asleep. Too many little distractions from the modern world- TV shows, movies, the internet, sex, drugs, my nth cup of caffeine. Modernity is too hard core for an ancient human ritual such as sleep.

I bet times were simple back then for Proust, perhaps all he had to do is turn the gaslight off.