Morning People
Night owls often get a bad rap in our culture. If you stay awake until three o’clock in the morning and then sleep in until ten the following day, a lot of people will only hear the “slept in until ten.” So far as they are concerned you probably sleep sixteen hours a day. But what if you were productive up until the late hour you fell asleep, filing taxes, writing fan mail to Stephen King or cleaning your gun collection?
While I haven’t read the latest New England Journal of Medicine yet or ever, I assume preferences for evening or morning energy is hard-wired. Many people do not so much view morning vs. evening energy peaks as a genetic predisposition as they do as cosmic evidence that they are innately better than everyone else, and they tend to rub it in.
What these people fail to realize is that if night owls did not exist, neither would human beings.
Visualize our hominid ancestors millions of years ago, roaming the great grasslands of Kansas:
By day they stalked woolly mammoths and hit each other with clubs, just like modern Kansanians. But at night the world effectively shut down. Unlike modern man, they did not have motion-sensor home burglary lights to ward off saber tooth tigers. In fact no artificial light sources existed at all. The only way to ensure you did not get eaten by a prowling velociraptor at night was if somebody stayed awake sharpening a pointy stick and yelling if they saw one.
Coffee had also not been invented, so mankind could not collectively stay awake together looking out for hungry predators. Herein lies my theory: somebody had to take the late shift, and our night owl predecessors volunteered.
Groups of hominids with only smug morning people in them all got devoured by saber tooth tigers eventually, leaving a proto-human population with genes which randomly favor either morning or evening energy peaks.
Today these genes, which kept us alive for eons, are not necessary due to technology. For instance, our society provides glow sticks, strobe lights and ecstasy to teenagers, because tigers are scared shitless of raves. As ecstasy and glow sticks have proliferated in our population, the relative value of night owls has plummeted. Night people are only recognized for their later energy levels if they are burglars, which in any case is illegal in most states (including Kansas).
As the internet comes into its own and more companies look into flex time, it’s possible that the staunch morning people faschism left over from the Industrial Revolution might go away. But even if it doesn’t, it’s a good idea to avoid being smug all the time. Because if somebody ever forgets to turn the lights off, you people are screwed.
