New Ways to Not Sleep.

The sleep doctors amongst you will probably yell at me, but often I listen to podcasts while I fall asleep. I find that it helps because I often have trouble sleeping. Surprisingly there are not a lot of podcasts that are good for this (Yes, I have tried Sleep with Me). I’ve discovered that what really does it for me tend to be mildly interesting history podcasts.

Some are a little too interesting, like Our Fake History and The Constant. Some are weirdly shouty, like In Our Time. Some are too much white-libertarian-guy for me, like Hardcore History. Some are too much fun, like Ancient History Fangirl or Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby!. What I need is something interesting enough that I can calm my mind by just focusing down on what I’m listening to, but not so stimulating that it actively keeps me awake. 

You know what is weirdly great at this? A podcast called Fall of Civilizations, which is all about how various civilizations have collapsed throughout time. The episodes are long, they’re well-produced, the guy has a nice voice, and he never shouts. You might ask, “Doesn’t it weird you out listening to all that tragedy as you drift off to dreamland?” Good question; no, no it does not.

Another good one is called Historical Blindness and I was listening to it last night and I was still awake enough to be impressed when the dude dropped the ten dollar phrase “pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theory.” 

Let me tell you, while it is often a pain in the ass living inside my particular brain, one thing I do enjoy about it is that even though I didn’t know that phrase, I knew all of the constituent terms of that phrase, so this brain processed it for me automatically and I was just all like, “Oh this is going to be awesome!”

It was episode #67 entitled, “Written in Stone: The Archaeological Frauds of Pre-Columbian Trans-Oceanic Contact Theories”, but I did not know that at first, I just clicked play.

Basically it was about how in America, white colonizers throughout history have gone out of their way to fake evidence that white people were in North America before Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492 (Remember, Columbus never set foot on the North American continent.)

Now, yes, Northern Europeans had been to North America prior to Columbus (the so-called Vikings even had settlements up in Canada for awhile, but they were only the Middle Age equivalent of a Flying J [also, also the Middle Ages aren’t real, but that is a discussion for another time]).  However when white Christians were stealing land from Native Americans during our early settlement period, they did not KNOW that Vikings had had camps up north.

The purpose of these various hoaxes was usually to “prove” that one or more of the so-called lost tribes of Israel had gotten to North America a long time ago and — I guess — by the law of transitive property, that meant that North America was (somehow) Christian? And so they could take all the land and kill all the people who lived on it. QAnon was not always called “QAnon” folks. This is all very similar to the “ancient aliens” theory, which — by the way — is also racist.

Anyway, the fun thing was that when the dude dropped, ““pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theory” I immediately recognized that this was going to be some Joseph Smith and the Golden Plates level of crazy. There are few more fun stories from history than those of people who are simply, bold faced lying (Seriously, check out The Constant, that podcast is all about grifters). The problem is that it was too interesting of an episode, so I couldn’t fall asleep.

I blame this not on the podcaster, but rather on the 400 years ago grifters who were simultaneously so stupid and audacious that even now it is fascinating to ponder their delirium.

Someone could write a whole book (and probably has) about the simple topic of how much of our modern lives is built on a foundation of outright imaginary bullshit. I’m not going to be able to do that now though, because I’m exhausted this morning, because i couldn’t get to sleep, because of those damn grifters.

.

.

.

Thinking on the Life of Lars Larce.

There is a Spanish idiom that goes, “Thinking on the immortality of a crab” and I only learned about it recently, but it has become one of my favorite phrases. It relates to daydreaming and it is a funny way of saying, “I’m not doing nothing, I’m actually deep in contemplation.”

So the usage would be like this:

INT. DAY. LIVING ROOM.

RINALDO is staring passively out a window. Enter MARIA.

MARIA: Rinaldo! You lazy bum! Why are you just sitting there while I am making dinner for the kids?

RINALDO: I’m actually thinking on the immortality of a crab.

MARIA: Well why don’t you do that while you set the table?

RINALDO: Yes, Maria.

MARIA: My mother was right about you.

And scene!

Now, whatever marriage problems Maria and Rinaldo might have are not the topic of this blog post. I am mostly concerned now about daydreaming.

I have spent enough of my life engaged in creative endeavors that I recognize how essential it is to daydream, to ponder and to simply let the mind wander. I’ve had trouble with it the last year or two though and I really do think that it is because of podcasts. 

That seems like a leap, but hear me out. The explosion of podcasts has made it so that whatever your niche interests, you can find a podcast. For instance, the inimitable Glen Weldon of NPR now has a podcast called A Degree Absolute that goes episode by episode through the 1960 British TV show The Prisoner which is the single most insane television program that has ever been produced. And listening to the podcast is absolutely delightful and I love it because it was clearly made for me and like the four other people in existence who would like to see David Lynch make a James Bond movie.

The problem is that my podcast consumption has been increasing substantially over the years and there are some days when I basically don’t even take my earbuds out. There is just SO MUCH information out there to consume! And some of it is good. It is not all bubblegum that I’m listening to. I listen to several daily news pods and numerous wonky policy pods and shows on minimalism and stoicism and history and all kinds of other smart and fancy stuff like that. 

But what I’m not doing much lately is thinking on the immortality of a crab.

Last night I was in bed trying to go to sleep and a name came to me. This is not a terribly unusual thing for a writer and I like odd names, I even keep a list of them. So even though I was warm and comfy under my blankets, I had to roll over and reach for my phone in the dark and that is why this morning I have an email from myself that just says, “Lars Larce”. Now I don’t know who Lars Larce is or what I’m going to do with his name, but at least it did not leave me in the middle of the night, which would have happened otherwise.

As I settled back into bed last night, I realized it had been a long time since I’d had to do that. This was my first Lars Larce in a long time. That makes me sad because when the creative process is really kicking, you are getting Lars Larces all the damn time. A productive writer lives a life drowning in post-it notes that say things like: “The feather is GREEN” or “the roof of the arboretum needs cleaned and so it’s gloomy when they meet.” Stuff like that is common.

But you can’t realize that the roof of the arboretum needs cleaned if you’re not letting your mind wander around in there. You can’t find your way around the arboretum if you’re focused on Glen Weldon talking about the state of BBC Four in 1967. 

I need to find a way to cram more non-time into my life. I need to spend more time thinking on the immortality of a crab. I need to open up some space for more Lars Larces in my life. After all, who is he meeting at the arboretum? Why there? And what’s with the feather? I’m never going to figure it out unless I find some time to.

.

.

.