You'd think the brain could use a good night's rest to do something useful, like solve a problem, sort out what's important from what's not, or even just chill out.
Instead the brain, if mine is at all representative, takes the opportunity to go a little crazy. Throw everything into the pot, stir it around a few times, and then show the movie in a slight fast forward on the screen of my mind, so that I wake up to a chaotic swirl of thoughts and images.
I've noticed my mind wakes up without a good sense of time. Asleep, it seems to think that everything needs to happen at once. So my first waking job is to come back to the sense of time, priority and sequence. Things take time, and not everything can, or should, happen at once.
I was thinking of what a mess it would be if time wasn't there as a canvas to spread life out on. Imagine what a beautiful symphony would sound like if all the notes from all the instruments were played at once. It would be nothing but a roar, a dense and very loud block of sound - likely indistinguishable from any other work given similar treatment. Time provides a ground to spread out the sounds upon, so they can be noticed and juxtaposed in particular relationships that we experience as unique, beautiful and profound.
Thinking about that gave me a different perspective on my life. Much time is spent on little things - buttoning a shirt, tying a shoe, brushing teeth, feeding the pets. If I enjoy and appreciate them, these are the beautiful little notes I string together to make the composition for the day. If I ignore them, take them for granted, I miss a great opportunity to experience life at its fullest. If I get caught up in rushing to do everything at once - hurrying on to the next thing before finishing the one before me, I make my life a cacophony of meaningless noise.
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