A Conversation with the Anti-sleep Crusader

 Been a minute, but finally we are back. I will not waste time with pleasantries. Let's get to it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on campus to attend some talks by people from the World Health Organization. Now, I know I may not have mentioned this, but I somehow have ended up in this cycle of learning that doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon. Anyway. What was I saying? YES! I was on campus.

Being on campus gave me one rare opportunity to interact with a fellow student who also happens to be a compatriot. As we started our Chichewa conversation, we could not help but read the sleep deprivation on each other's faces. While we were laughing about how normal it had become for us to sleep for 3 to 4 hours a day for one straight week. That was when one of the lecturers and senior academics walked in on us, wondering what our conversation was about. When we shared, he wondered why we thought we looked sleep deprived as he thought we looked normal. Almost in unison, me and Amalawi anzanga gave him the explanation. "Maybe it is because you are used to seeing these faces"

Those who have gone through education past anything close to the Malawi School Certificate of Education will agree with me that school can cause you to have sleepless nights. It is interesting how one can almost conclude that the higher you go, the worse that phenomenon becomes. This is my case and curse as I am pursuing my third qualification after the almighty MSCE with the possibility of one more after this one. Ndidzagona, koma mochedwerapo.

 The issue of lack of sleep can be a serious concern among university students. By the time most of the readers are going through this, there is a sleep seminar going on at my university. The goal of the seminar is to help students have better and healthier sleep habits and patterns. I am not attending the seminar because I am sleep-working somewhere having spent most of last night working too. It is remarkably interesting, therefore, that I have a friend who happens to be an anti-sleep crusader.

The anti-sleep crusader happens to be a fellow academic young man whose face has also been transformed by the chronic deprivation of sleep, I would imagine. There are some things I can tell you for sure, though. He is an engineer currently studying for his master's degree somewhere in the far east. You may be wondering what he did or does to deserve the seemingly mean title that I crafted for him with little to no effort. For the past few weeks, this guy has been posting content about how we, Malawians should not be sleeping as much as we do. Now this content varies. It could be a plain status update, a picture, video clip or Bible verse. The theme is the same, though. Get out of bed and work. And the timing? Usually, he posts these things around 4 or 5 am Malawian time. Timing. Consistency. This is why I called this good man the anti-sleep crusader, because that is what I thought he was at the time.

And now, the conversation. Yesterday the crusader was at it again. This time, he posted a video in which one Reverend Yassin Gama of Mvama CCAP was preaching on how Malawians need to change their oversleeping habits. According to the good reverend, we are supposed to be waking up as early as 2 am to get on with our business to solve our national and personal economic woes. I happened to be awake at the time, and I thought it could be nice to engage my friend and find out why he has been posting such messages lately. I was in for a treat.

"A lot of things can be achieved while others are asleep. Malawians don't think in broad daylight, and they should be awake at night; reflecting on their lives, making plans and working." I should mention here that I have only translated the Chichewa bits that were in the message, but that is as the crusader put it. Shortly afterwards, we took a nosedive into how some of the senior academics we know seem to be working in what one would fairly describe as ungodly hours of the morning. They would work from home from 2 am, be in the office at 5 and be the last to leave. All of us would then marvel at their research output, their promotions, and the research funding they rake in... while we sleep. Mwaiona nkhaniyo?

In contrast, most of us wake up just in time for work. When we show up, we have a few productive hours that we use to work before we turn to our phones for some useless chit-chat and to view WhatsApp status updates. Before we know it, lunch hour cones and we go to have nsima. We all know how sleepy one gets after eating nsima so afternoons are hardly productive. What we agreed on, then, was the fact that there is a limit to what you can do in daylight when everyone else is awake. Just this week a friend of mine texted me at 2 am, wondering why I didn't respond to a message she had sent to me an hour earlier. This is someone with whom I discuss work stuff at 3 am. We are in the same time zone; in case you are thinking that she is in some place where the time difference would make sense.  For some reason, some of us have come to decide that the hours between 11 pm and 4 am are the best for work and we use them for that, having known our weakness for distractions. I digressed. Let's get back to the crusader.

 As I mentioned, the good man mentioned how important is if for a person to spend part of their work time thinking. His response to my message also suggested that such thoughts on serious things like personal and career development need to be reserved for such wee hours of the night. The thought of personal development reminded me of Skeffa's Chiyambi song in which he encourages people in the working class to develop themselves and start investing. I was also quickly reminded of how some friends of mine advocate for investment in skills that can serve as sources of income outside formal employment. If you think about it, it is difficult for one to do such side things on the employer's time. As such, we have ended up having people who are "too busy for their own personal development". On the side, I edit scholarship applications for people. There are moments when I send emails to clients at 1 am only to get a response with all my queries addressed an hour later. These people would typically excel and bag their dream scholarships. In contrast there are those whose work schedules are too packed to review the comments and red ink I put into their CVs. In the end, they do not finish the application processes. I know my example is a simplification of a complex situation, but I hope you are getting what I am on about. This led me to this conclusion, then

 Not all of us will have the luxury of pushing personal shenanigans on the employer's time and we need to find our own time to do things. That, good friends, is why the Bible says we should not love sleep, lest we grow poor.

Following our conversation, I was left reflecting as to whether this engineer is indeed an anti-sleep crusader, and I am leaning towards the negative. He is something more of a pro-thinking and pro-self-development than he is anti-sleep. I would agree with such a person all the time. I encourage thinking. I encourage progress. I encourage self-development and we need to make a deliberate effort to create time for such. It may not be 3 am like some of the people I know but make some time to think about how you will develop yourself outside of your routines. That being said, please make sure that you sleep for at least 6 hours a day. Doctor's advice, eti?

Have a blessed weekend.