Etherknitter has a quite brilliant post up about something I've thought about, and railed about, and despaired over quite a bit: rudeness in modern life.

I guess I tend to harp more on the "anonymity" issue - that if you don't know someone, it's harder to love and forgive them in the way you would a housemate, or a family member, or a child.

But Etherknitter - probably given her background - also reminds us that we are at least partly chemical beings, and if those chemicals get whacked out through constant overstimulation, we will melt down.

(Edited to add: I notice that on weeks when there's "too much" going on, or at times when I'm watching too much tv, or when I spend too much time on the Internet, I have vivid, disturbing, and almost suffocating dreams. I wonder if that's my body frantically trying to process the excess neurotransmitters. I guess I can control the tv and the Internet usage; not always so much the "too much" going on.)

One thing I have noticed through this week's news-fast is that I am slowing down. When I come home in the afternoon, I don't switch on the local news any more. I've been rifling through my CD collection and putting one on the player and listening while I knit. And that helps a lot. Maybe that needs to be a semipermanent part of my downtime - listening to something nice for at least 15 minutes as soon as I get home.

Yesterday afternoon's choice was "Facing Future," by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. It's hard to be sad when listening to his beautiful rendition of "Somewhere over the Rainbow." (And even though it's been heavily used in advertising, I still love it - it's so different and so surprising when the version you're most familiar with is the one from the movie).

But I do think people need to unplug. Perhaps - hopefully? - that will be the next major paradigm in modern society: the realization that we need downtime, REAL downtime, not time when we're chattering away on our cell phones, or listening to/watching/reading crap "because it's there" but instead choosing things to fill the interstices of our life that actually enrich it and that affect our moods in beneficial ways.

And we need SLEEP. I cannot emphasize how important that is. Sleep is very important to me. Bill Cosby, in one of his comedy routines, once remarked that he enjoyed sleep "like I enjoy a good steak." There is something very satisfying about a good night's sleep, and I find I also have a sense of relief many days when I can finally get into bed and think about sleeping; when I can tell myself "there is nowhere you have to be for the next eight hours."