ON BECOMING AN EARLY RISER

Swift identified the curse of living forever
(Picture from Wikimedia)

It is partly the heat which gets me out of bed early now. I used to be a late sleeper (if I could) but these days the lower temperatures early in the morning get me out of bed at six – or sometimes earlier. I start to get tired at about ten o’clock at night, so I am not spending less time in bed or asleep but, instead of going to bed between eleven and midnight and getting up at seven, I tend to go to bed between ten and eleven and get up at six.

It is not much of a change, admittedly, just an hour or so, but it makes me like an early riser with that rather irritating smugness which goes with the condition, even if the change is practical rather than moral. Nevertheless, my alarm goes off at six every day and I start the day with my exercises. (I have dodgy knees so I need to do them.) Admittedly I do sometimes go back to sleep afterwards, so I usually get around eight hours in bed - with a few loo breaks.

 

I have always said that you have no right to work in the tourist business if you are a duvet addict. It is often necessary to get up early to go to the airport or catch a train to meet a cruise ship at Tilbury or some other port. It is a matter of pride to me that, if I say I will be at a certain place at a requested time, I will be there come what may. In the past, on the says I was not working, I would often take the opportunity to sleep longer – but not anymore.

 

I am not quite sure why I am writing about my sleeping habits, but such things seem important now. Going around in my head is a postcard I saw long ago with the saying on it:

 

“Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise!”

 

I am not sure it does but there is no escaping the smugness of the early rising proselytisers. It is both a sexist (note the ‘man’ in the saying) and work-oriented, promoting the virtues of earning a buck in a world where early-rising is seen as advantageous. 

 

The world of entertainment, where you stay up late to look after your clients is a long way from this, one of go-getting and money-making. It is taken as read that such activities are best conducted in daylight hours before the sun goes down and you are (briefly) allowed to enjoy yourself before you go back to work. In fact, you can make money just as well at night time but somehow it is the days that count when it comes to making a penny or a pound.

 

Anyway, I have somewhat belatedly joined the early risers in my old age. I am at the stage now where an early night is preferable to a lie-in in the morning. I suppose it comes with age along with declungung physical and sexual powers, needing to get up to pee in the middle of the night. It is curious that, although I have no trouble peeing (yet) I suffer from consultation and find it harder as I grew older to bring to put the other way.

Anyway, enough of my declining body and physical powers. At least my mind is nor going, so thank heaven for small mercies. As I said in my last post on this site, I want my body to go before my mind.We hear sometimes of the possibility of extending life almost indefinitely but I remain sceptical and always remember Jonathan Swift, in one of the less well known parts of Gulliver's Travels, finding that those who live forever were regarded as cursed not blessed.

It may seem strange, with fewer people (including me) not believing in an afterlife, to decide not to cheat death but the struldbuggs, who Gulliver came across in Laputa, were generally pitied as being condemned to a friendless, old age in which they could not even enjoy their food and were not immune from the savages of old age like dementia but were simply unable to die. Swift lived a long life, almost reaching eighty, but he was probably as relieved as anyone when it ended.

The memory of the struldbuggs stayed with me and remembering them and the curse of the mark on the forehead which meant that they could never die meant that I was more prepared to accept my imminent death. I do not know when it will come - and am not in any hurry - but I have more of my life behind me than ahead of me now and I am busy getting ready for my imminent demise. If I know nothing else I know it will come eventually,

Edwin Lerner My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com