6 2 * Schoenberg always complained that his American pupils didn’t do enough work. There was one girl in the class in particular who, it is true, did almost no work at all. He asked her one day why she didn’t accomplish more. She said, “I don’t have any time.” He said, “How many hours are there in the day?” She said, “Twenty-four.” He said, “Nonsense: there are as many hours in a day as you put into it.”
John Cage — Indeterminacy
Turns out you can add hours of sleep to whatever limited-ass sleep-deprived regime you might have decided to try and subsist on because perhaps you’ve decided you can, oh, I dunno, master guitar, piano, keep on bassin’, get a little drumming technique, write, work, immerse yourself in politics, and occasionally talk to other humans (you probably don’t do that much; you probably should). And be in several bands. And have a job or two or three. Oh, and walk your dog.
I don’t know what kind of psychopath would take all that on, but if I did, I’d be happy to tell him what I learned, exhausted, last night: you can emerge into semi-consciousness, peer at the clock, will it backwards to an earlier time, and go back to sleep. This incredibly valuable technique (oh, I wish I’d discovered it sooner!) allowed me something like 20 hours of sleep in the narrow-ass 4 hour window I allotted myself… once I figured this out, I kept working the clock backwards, and this morning, at 5:15, I arose, refreshed, recuperated, and rejuvenated.
