'Made in....Earth'


One of the very few drawbacks of being ‘Made on Earth’ is that we live in a 24 hour cycle… it's not a coincidence that our internal cycle matches one-to-one with that of Mother Earth... We adapted ourselves, generations after generations to be powered by a 17 hour battery that needs 7 or so hours to recharge (with severe power falls after heavy lunch…). I even know a few people that are powered by a 7 hour battery that needs 17 hours to recharge. And this is not the entire bad news, it's even more problematic when you calculate how many hours out of the 24 hour frame are wasted on running the daily self-maintenance (we have to: sleep, eat, clean up, dress up, the t o i l e t s...), leaving a ridiculously low number of hours a day for the ‘real thing’ whatever it may be. It's true, that we have all learned to enjoy that maintenance part of our lives, and some of us claim vigorously that this IS the real thing (especially the sleep and eat part..), but let's face reality here, we are not a master piece for efficiency and automation.

It could have been worse you know, we could have been 'Made on Jupiter' for an example...can you imagine how it would have been to condense the whole daily drill (wake up, brush teeth, a little bit of toilet, get dressed, toasted bagel and coffee , drive to work, work a little bit, lunch, work a bit, drive back home, be with the kids, shower the kids, tell the kids a story, take the kids to bed, fall asleep with the kids in bed, wake up in the middle of the night feeling like a rag...) every 9.8 hours...? If you wake up a bit too late, you can just as well stay in bed and wait for the next day …

… On the other hand, had we been ‘made in Venus’ (ignore the temperature issue for the argument’s sake), we would have evolved to own a fine battery capable of providing this nice round number of 2800 hour (wire speed, non-blocking) daily operation. This of course would have had a striking effect both on our body, which would have to support such a long activity with a much stronger heart and muscles, and on our brain … and with our new BBB (Battery, Body and Brain) humanity could have been at an entirely different place now!

But lets go back to our planet for a second. Many of us, me included, have a larger battery than the others…and some of us (again me included) a much much larger one, maybe a 30 to 40 hour battery. On Earth this doesn’t help a bit. Au contraire! It’s purely bad luck! We, the Extended-Battery-Types, are still bound by the very rigid rules of Mom (Earth) that turns off the lights way too early for our taste, forcing us to bed in the middle of the action... Lacking a decent alternative - and reducing the spinning speed of Earth could definitely do the job - and in order to avoid this artificial Forced-Shut-Down, many of the Extended-Battery-Types will try to exhaust their battery by releasing energy - doing more things and faster, or be in more than one place at one time. This behavior is NOT welcomed by the Poor-Battery-Types… they will call the Extended by names, ‘restless’ ‘immature’, ‘childish’ to name a few, and by letters, ‘ADD’, ‘ADHD’ (attention deficit hyperactivity something…). But getting even with my school teachers is not the main purpose of my research here (just a side-benefit) and so…

...And so, evolution shmevolution... this 24 hour thing may be working on average but doesn't really fit a good part of us! Lets assume that there was a way to control the pace of the rotation of Earth. We could put it on High (meaning an 18 hour daily rotation), on Medium (meaning a 24 hour rotation) or on Slow – I wish I wish I wish (a 36 hour rotation). This would definitely have an effect on our productivity as a Globe, but even more clearly, this would have a major reviving effect on some of us and a devastating affect on others… Although this is only theoretical, I bet that it would have caused a real debate among different parties who would furiously advocate why we should set the speed of Earth on High, Medium or Slow…

My only conclusion here is that each one of us has his own battery and internal clock, and this is true for individuals just as it is true for organizations. If we follow our own pace and not what is expected by others with different batteries, and if we let those around us follow their pace and not ours… we may get away from changing the speed of Earth and still reach similar results…


By the way, just a strange thought (for a change), this also means that one day when aliens will visit us, they will probably come from a very large, slow rotating star… and they will not only be much smarter than us. They will also be much, much bigger (I mean m u c h!), which is a splendid news for you girls, but kind of an irritating thought for the male side…


.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Choosing a Board of Friends

Risk mitigation - the rules of crossing deserts

The Magnificent Crisis..