When are you actually going to bed? And when do you wake up? There’s always a big discussion when you talk about bio clocks, waking up early to use the day (e.g. for writing) or things like the B-society.

A German farmer’s saying goes like:

Der frühe Vogel fängt den Wurm. (The early bird catches the worm.)

Farmers still exist and with all the eco and sustainability trends going on there will be even more rather than less in the future, I’m assuming.

However, I’m writing as a „digital native“ here, so my focus should be on the perspective on all these digital information workers. Should it really? So, what’s the actual value of waking up early?

Value of waking up early

Let’s have a look what Pieter Levels, a pretty known self-called „digital nomad“ (Pieter, correct me if I’m wrong that you call yourself like that) arguments:

There’s no reason to think of waking up early as a quality.

He’s referring to the context that waking up early is perceived by the majority of society as a sign of quality.

While I agree with Pieter when he says that it’s „ridiculous“ to assume waking up early is a virtue you religiously need to stick to, I see the quality of waking up early in the connection with the surrounding (nature).

Learning Nature

As an always-connected city person, as far as I know Pieter is and I’m as well, you don’t really speak Nature. Yes, Nature is a language. And yes, cities have parks and green parts but I’m talking nature that you can feel, breath and live with(in), nature that you start to understand when you spend enough time in it, just like in your students exchange times in Germany to learn German. Potentially, you learn the language you are surrounded with: When surrounded by nerds, you learn nerd stuff. When surrounded by coders and write, you learn code and writing. When surrounded by Nature, you learn to read and write Nature.

Making nature your ally means you follow its rules, so to say. That includes: When the sun rises, you rise. When the sun goes down, you go to bed. You don’t have to follow – you can do whatever you want. But if you do, you are rewarded with a synchronization an iCloud-Sync can’t give you. Making nature your ally makes every participant of it (flora and fauna) an implicit ally.

Connecting to nature

Accordingly, what connection do you have when you don’t follow Mother Nature’s dictatorship (intentionally exaggerated)?

Who are you in sync with? With you own values? Sure. With people who use their time liberated from constraints like you? Definitely. How much a-synchronicity can you actually handle and don’t lose connection to people whose life-work’s clocks tick differently? I don’t know. Do you know? How archaic is it to to think that an alignment with nature (the natural ecosystem) is important for your inner ecosystem (internal balance)?

Digital liberty and natural constraints

In essence I’m feeling the total liberation of time on the one hand (thanks mainly to the internet and people getting more and more what it offers in terms of life-work options and paradigm shifts) and a longing for the rhythm of nature and following its melodies.

I’m wondering: How does a generally digital work-lifestyle with artificial (i.e. handmade) liberations, constructions (metaphorically) and constraints having a strong emphasis on a connection to technology go hand in hand an with a nature-centered approach in your work-lifestyle whose strong connection is built up through the raw tangibility of things. How is the outer world you’re work-living in a mirror of your inner world?

Thinking of Ghost In The Shell and leaving you with these thoughts.