Song and Poems Galore!

July 28

July 27

The haikus from today and yesterday are both related to Steve Pavlina’s podcast on Fear. It is one of the most inspiring pieces I’ve ever listened to. I strongly encourage you to check it out.

July 26

I just recorded this video today (the 28th) but the song was actually written on the 26th, so it goes here for the Challenge.

July 25

A Little Music and Reflections on Achieving Goals

July 24th song

Well, I didn’t really write this song (in the sense that there was nothing to write down) but I did create it today, so I figure that counts.

If you’d been wondering about my silence for two weeks or so (which probably nobody has, since (to the best of my knowledge) my fledgling blog has only 2-3 followers at the moment) then you’d probably be thinking “Has Malcolm been writing amazing poems and songs every day and just not sharing them with the world?” as my 30 Day Poem/Song challenge is still running until the end of the month.

The answer to that question, sadly, is “No.”

What happened?

When I discovered the idea of the 30 Day Challenge, I decided immediately that I wanted to do something. I considered doing something super-easy like “Take a photo every day” (technically I already do this as I photograph all of my food before eating it as a mindfulness exercise). I figured, however, that I could go further, and set my first challenge to be something that has often been, well, a challenge for me: forced creativity.

I consider myself a fairly creative person, but the majority of my creations arise out of spontaneous notions rather than methodical processes or even daily habits. My hope with the 30 Day Poem/Song was to help change that, but apparently it’s a bit more difficult than I thought. I have essentially failed my first 30 Day Challenge.

Failure

I have a tendency to succeed at most endeavours I pursue, but I’ve noticed that I also have a tendency to put them off until the last minute. I’ve also noticed that I don’t get many things done unless I plan when I’m going to do them, and my schedule tends to be pretty erratic. I was listening to an interview of Tim Ferriss earlier today (by Leo Babauta — they are two of my favourite personal development leaders) and he brought up the idea of controlling your behaviour by controlling your environment. That is, becoming productive by making your world a place in which productivity is natural. I’ve been listening to a bunch of Steve Pavlina’s (he’s another huge inspiration to me in personal development)  podcasts lately, and one of them mentioned this idea as well.

So, in the pursuit of awesomeness, I’ve been trying to come up with ways to organize my life, both in terms of time and space, so that I’m a more productive person. I’ve decided to start simply by believing that I will achieve this. That’s another idea I got from Steve Pavlina (from this podcast on Beliefs). Hence here is my proclamation:

Shadow [#3 – Summer of Song 2011]

I write songs. Here’s one of the first, recently recorded for my Summer of Song project. (All summer, I release one YouTube video per week of me playing an original song.)

This year’s first two are Even The Rain and The Reason Why

“Self-Referentially” – A Double-Dactyl Poem

New poem style. This one is crazy. It has so many rules. More about Double-Dactyls on Wikipedia. In brief, though, it has to have 8 lines, of which 1-3 & 5-7 are two dactyls (stressed-unstressed-unstressed) and 4 & 8 are a dactyl followed by a monosyllable. Line two must contain a name. The second stanza must have a six-syllable word as one of its lines. The last lines of the stanzas must rhyme with each other. Without further ado, “Self-Referentially”:

(June 11)

Haiku on Lucid Dreaming

I was thinking last night about how awesome lucid dreaming would be. Boom — Haiku.

July 10

If It Didn’t Rhyme (A Poem in Couplets)

July 9

How To Write A Sonnet

July 8

If someone in your life you’d like to woo
And you suppose you’d like to try with verse
Yet poesy is all but new to you
Relax, for sonnet know-how I disperse:

The first step is to choose your rhyming scheme
Shakespearean is how this one is known
Italian’s another often seen
For more you can do research on your own.

Pentameter-iamb’s the other key:
Unstressed and stressed repeated five times o’er
Eventually it will come naturally,
Though first it may feel like a brutal chore.

Good luck! By writing you may brave your fears.
Be proud to join the ranks of sonneteers.

Self-referential Haikus

Two haikus:

July 7

July 6

Poems from Previous Days

When I try to force myself to write poetry, it often ends up being either self-referential or about whatever is on my mind at the time.

July 5

July 4

July 3

Uberman Day 6 Conclusion

I’m done.

This past week or so has been quite an experience, but after learning a bit more about Uberman and about polyphasic sleeping in general,  I have decided that my Uberman transition is over. It’s 3:34, so if it weren’t then I ought to be napping. Here’s a summary of the termination of my adventure.

What convinced me to stop:

• Claudio Stampi, one of the major researchers on polyphasic sleep, states that the naps don’t become exclusively REM, which violates my main premise for attempting Uberman – the idea that I’d get extra REM sleep compared to monophasic. All he says is essentially that if you have to get only 2-3 hours of sleep per day, these are more effectively acquired in short naps. Polyphasic sleep does not appear to actually be more effective than monophasic sleep.
• Reading about polyphasic sleep on Supermemo. It’s quite long, but not a heavy read, and definitely worth reading if you’re considering doing this.
• The naps are inconvenient. This was not a major disadvantage, but it was only outweighed by the promise of increased productivity, which seems to have been a mirage.
• I’ve been learning about other life hacks and ways to increase productivity. I’d like to try these, but they don’t work well with polyphasia.

What surprised me:

• People were extremely accommodating. I’m part of an A Capella group, and our practises were from 5:30-8:30. I talked with the exec and they were completely fine with me taking 20 mins off to nap in the middle. Fortunately, the group practises at my residence, so I could actually go nap in my bed.
• It is possible to function for lengthy periods of time with very limited sleep. Despite not being 100%, I am still quite functional right now, having slept only about 21h since last Monday.
• One of the biggest hurdles was simply how weird it felt to spend so much time awake. I had no idea how much I’d want to just sleep for hours and escape from the world. Being perpetually awake kind of traps you in reality… although I suppose if I were having long, vivid dreams during each nap then that would be less of an issue. I feel like some people might give this up simply because it feels so strange to do it.

What it cost me:

• I completely missed handing in an assignment last week, but it was only worth about 1.5% of my final grade in that course, and I’m nowhere close to failing, so this is not very significant.
• I haven’t really done many creative things over the past week, especially in the later days as my fatigue increased. I’ve been meaning to record a song, and I have some other projects that I’d like to be working on.
• People seemed to think what I was doing was dangerous, but I don’t really think that over the past week I’ve done any serious harm to myself. That said, there have been articles suggesting that long-term sleep deprivation like this can reduce the brain’s ability to respond normally to cues about sleeping. I think I’ll be fine though.

Benefits of trying anyway:

• I switched to vegetarianism, and have eaten some very tasty meals that I mightn’t’ve otherwise. This switch also illuminated the challenges of eating out as a vegetarian and of getting enough protein. The vegetarianism is going to end now as well, primarily because I’m eating most meals at my cafeteria and their meals aren’t always ideal. Even still, I’m going to consume plenty of legumes and vegetables… I just don’t want to completely give up meat. Once I’m on my own and buying/cooking my own food, I’ll definitely revisit vegetarianism.
• I now have a snazzy blog up on my site. I still need to flesh out some of the pages but the form itself is here.
• I learned how to get up instantly to an alarm, a skill that still will be extremely useful on a regular sleep schedule.
• I feel like I’m better at napping now, although that will have to be re-examined once I’m no longer sleep deprived.
• I rediscovered the joys of going for long walks. I’m not sure when I’m going to find the time for it in a normal schedule, but maybe I’ll bring some friends with me and make it a social event. (If any of my real-life friends are reading this and would like to go for a walk sometime, let me know!)
• I feel ready for anything. It’s strange, because I didn’t actually succeed at Uberman, or even succeed at keeping to my schedule for more than 2 days, but I feel like I had to exert more discipline than I usually have to. Studies have shown that practising self-control is actually practice — ie. it improves your self-control for future events. This makes me feel like I could now take on another challenging habit change.

I’m pleased to see that the list of benefits is longer than the costs lists. I definitely don’t feel like this was a waste of a week, although all of these benefits could be incurred without an investment in polyphasia.

Would I recommend doing this?

No. There are other ways to improve your productivity or sleep habits that have actually been shown to work successfully for large numbers of people. Uberman does not.

Where I’m going from here:

I’m going to spend a few days examining different aspects of my life and then come up with a plan for something new to try. I haven’t maxed out my awesomeness yet. I will likely be taking some ideas from 40 Sleep Hacks: The Geek’s Guide to Optimizing Sleep. I’ll potentially be adopting a light biphasic schedule, also known as “siesta”, in which I sleep for fewer than 8 hours at night but also nap in the afternoon. This will depend on the research I do and also on an assessment to see how well that would fit with my school schedule.

And now I am going to go lay in my bed, with no alarm clock set, and get up whenever suits me.

Malcolm

PS: The Supermemo article I linked to above describes how many bloggers try this, and some of their blogs just end abruptly with no conclusion. While I was ultimately unsuccessful at transitioning, I’m very proud to say that I did not crash or burn out.

Edit April 12, 2013: I’m currently in the process of adapting to a different kind of polyphasic sleep, known as Everyman 3. Read my Day 11 adaptation post.

Edit April 9, 2016: Everyman lasted a few months, and then I switched to a biphasic sleep schedule, which I’ve been doing since (for over two years). Read this update to find out more: Polyphasic? No, but stably and happily biphasic.