#31: Three Things that got me thinking

Liking maths + knowing yourself + broken sleep

Bonjour!

Here are my Three Things, a day early. I’ll send the second post of the week on Wednesday around 4pm CET. Next week the usual Tuesday + Friday schedule will resume.

Let’s go:

1. He likes it

Here I am, going on and on about following our curious spirit and doing things because we enjoy them, rather than to fulfil anyone else’s expectations. And then sometimes, I catch my own disbelieving self asking: But what for?

For instance on Saturday, when Beloved returned from a day with his friends:

- Me: Was G. there?
- Beloved: No, he was revising for an exam. He’s studying maths.
- Me: Maths?
- Beloved: He’s doing an online degree.
- Me: Why?
- Beloved: He likes it.
- Me: But I thought he was already teaching maths classes? [G. has a physics degree and works as a high school teacher.]
- Beloved: Oh yes, he’s been teaching maths for several years.
- Me: But what is the online degree for?
- Beloved: I think he really likes maths.

Photo by Enric Moreu on Unsplash

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2. Our own nature

I’ve just reread Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, by Gretchen Rubin. The book can be summarised in her three-word motto: “Be more Gretchen” (Be more you!). It offers a smorgasbord of strategies to cultivate habits, based on each person’s traits: Are you a lark or an owl? A moderator or an abstainer? An under-buyer or an over-buyer?

She also identified four so-called tendencies, based on how people respond to inner and outer expectations (Rubin has an online quiz here to find out your own tendency):

“The Four Tendencies can help us figure out which intrinsic motivator might resonate for most of us. For an Upholder, a habit that’s a source of control might have special appeal; for a Questioner, curiosity; for an Obliger, cooperation; for a Rebel, challenge.”

Rubin’s defence of self-knowledge is a refreshing one amid all the “Secret Habits of Successful People” and “Productivity Hacks” listicles:

“We can build our habits only on the foundation of our own nature.”

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3. An ancestral echo

Often, I fall asleep at the same time as my eldest child (= earlier than I’d like), then wake in the middle of the night for a few hours.

While researching sleep for a journalism assignment a while ago, I came across the “segmented” sleep of medieval times. Finding out about “first sleep” and “second sleep” gave me some relief and permission to listen more closely to my body’s cues. It can be OK to be out of sync with current expectations of what good sleep looks like, and accepting the sleep patterns I do get is more restful than berating them.

This Atlantic piece by Derek Thompson, published last month, basically concurs—with more detail and flair, and informative quotes from sleep researchers:

“Sleep is very flexible, when you look cross-culturally,” says Dorothy Bruck, of Australia’s Sleep Health Foundation. “Your body really does like routine. Find what works for you, and keep that routine going.”

…

Rather than see the legacy of premodern rest as an operating manual, I see it as a balm. My 3-a.m. awakenings aren’t an unnatural disorder, but an ancestral echo. Maybe that’s something to tell myself in the middle of the night, instead of fighting the sleep doctor in my head: It’ll be all right. We’ve been here before.

Photo by Cris Saur on Unsplash