As Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Up, Sluggard, and waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping” (Poor Richard, 1741 at National Archives, Founders Online).

Two thousand years prior, Plato’s Athenian said, “For when asleep no man is worth anything, any more than if he were dead...” (Laws, Book VII, 808c at Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University).

Various rephrasings of this idea have appeared since then, including more recently “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” the title of a British crime drama (2003), an American DJ documentary (2016), and songs by American rockers Bon Jovi (1992) and Warren Zevon (1976); and “We’ll sleep when we’re dead” (2009), a song by American metalcore band Blessthefall (source for all: Wikipedia).

Prior to the U.S. presidential election in 2024, Minnesota governor Tim Walz said, “We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” at a campaign rally in August after being named Kamala Harris’s running mate. Later that month, he rephrased the philosophy a bit: “There’ll be time to sleep when you’re dead” (source: ABC News).

As creatives and/or supporters of resistance literature and art, we may benefit by considering the advice of Greek poet Hesiod in Works and Days (ca. 700 BCE): “Observe due measure; proportion is best in all things” (Mythopedia). Which has evolved into “Moderation in all things.”

Which I imagine includes shut-eye. After all, no sleep—and we’ll be dead a lot quicker! 😉

We may also benefit then by adopting the medieval practice of first sleep and second sleep. That is, sleeping in two distinct periods, the first being two to three hours long (from about 9 p.m. to midnight) and the second, three to four hours long (from about 3 a.m. until six or seven). The two intervals were separated by the watch, a period during which people might take care of household chores, or socialize quietly, or recite prayers. (Not to mention, other more nefarious activities.)

However, biphasic sleeping was not a medieval peculiarity but rather “the dominant way of sleeping for millennia—an ancient default that we inherited from our prehistoric ancestors” (The forgotten medieval habit of “two sleeps”, by Zaria Gorvett for BBC online, 9 January 2022).