hello sabbath

I’m reading a book called The Power of Full Engagement. I hate these books designed to make executives more effective, with all their catch-phrases like “corporate athelete” and “organizational energy.” But this is still a pretty good book; the authors posit that humans were meant to have cycles of full engagement (when energy is expended) alternating with periods of restoration (when energy is restored). Sounds almost Deuteronomic. Check out this quote from physiologist Martin Moore-Ede, president of Circadian Technologies and author of The Twenty-Four-Hour Society:

At the heart of the problem is a fundemental conflict between the demands of our man-made civilization and the very design of the human brain and body…Our bodies were designed to hunt by day, sleep at night and never travel more than a few dozen miles from nunrise to sunset. Now we work and play at all hours, whisk off by jet to the far side of the globe, make life-or-death decisions or place orders on foreign stock exchanges in the wee hours of the morning. The pace of technological innovation is outstripping the ability of the human race to understand the consequences. We are machine-centered in our thinking–focused on the optimization of technology and equipment–rather than human-centered–focused on the optimization of human alertness and performance.

Martin, I’ve been thinking similar thoughts myself lately. I work in IT, and have long noticed that these machines which were supposed to have been our slaves have somehow turned the tables; I check email at all hours, I carry a cell phone, I blog and work long hours on after-hours projects which don’t have anything to do with restoring my energy. I say “Down with computers! Kill the beast! Écraser L’infame!” And on that note, I’m going to bed.