No Times de hoje #113

For a while the New York Times has been publishing a few articles on sleeplessness... calling it fully fledged insomnia sounds way too dramatic. Being a troubled sleeper for many years is somewhat of a concern to me. Fortunately the problem does not become the center of my life, though it has moments of undivided attention especially at nights (by definition) and some times during the day, when it becomes topic of conversation, or when I read the All-Nighters column. The column is especially interesting because it's contributed by authors coming from different backgrounds, usually all suffering from some form of sleeplessness, and offering practical, historical, or even somewhat scientific perspectives on the issue. The blurb is pretty self-explanatory:

What do you do when the world's asleep and you're awake? All-Nighters is an exploration of an ancient malady and modern fixation — insomnia. With contributions from writers, scientists, artists and others, it will document the many ways we approach sleeplessness — as a nuisance, a disease, a curse, an opportunity or even a gift.

Today's article focused on the literary-philosophical side of the issue. Here's the marking passage:

The importance of insomnia is so colossal that I am tempted to define man as the animal who cannot sleep. Why call him a rational animal when other animals are equally reasonable? But there is not another animal in the entire creation that wants to sleep yet cannot. (“On the Heights of Despair,” p.85)