Maybe 10 years ago, I had solid answers to all of these, but now I don't. Or at least the answers change month to month. Maybe this is an example of Socratic wisdom: it's better to admit not knowing than "know" the wrong answer.
Maybe 10 years ago, I had solid answers to all of these, but now I don't. Or at least the answers change month to month. Maybe this is an example of Socratic wisdom: it's better to admit not knowing than "know" the wrong answer.
My wife is absolutely left-handed. She has trouble doing things with her right hand. I'm mostly right-handed, but I have no trouble doing things with my left hand, so it's much less clear for me.
My point is that everyone has some things that are very, very clear, but not everything is clear. Don't expect to be able to put yourself into pre-made categories for everything.
And don't be upset when you're more adaptable than other people. Failing to classify yourself isn't a problem. Being adaptable is an asset.
Actually I just love peace at any time of day.
I suppose that makes me also a night person. I'm constantly either a morning person or an evening person. Quiet daytime is nice too, sometimes.
These questions are mostly some form of arbitrary categorization--the sort of thing humans love to do to make sense of the world. But these are just mental shortcuts, and best used for trying to understand others for whom you have little insight into their deepest thoughts and feelings. If your wife rises at 6am everyday, you don't need to deeply feel what she feels about rising early--just call her a morning person and move on to thinking about breakfast.
For yourself, you are free to appreciate the nuance of experience because you have unfiltered access to all of it. Don't feel the need to categorize yourself, which can just constrain your thoughts and actions to those stereotypically within that category. (I've associated with enough -ism's over the years to realize that I don't ever want to describe myself with any -ism label again.) Really examine the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations of your experience apart from labels created by society.
If not that, then what? Your aspirations? Your beliefs? Your intentions?
If there were an answer, it might be worth finding, but as that project hasn't found anything promising, there's not much value to keeping on with it.
About two years ago, I got a non-remote regular job where I need to travel across the city to get to my office. I began waking up early at 6:00 a.m. to reach office early before the traffic begins to peak. My professional working hours are now 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. My personal hacking hours are 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. I go to bed by 10:00 p.m. I have become a morning person and I see no difference in productivity.
If I had to choose if one is better than the other, although it would be a difficult choice, I would choose being a morning person is better for the sole reason that I go to bed at a fixed time and I don't keep hacking away at problems indefinitely until 4:00 a.m. when both body and mind are tired.
But at the same time, if my circumstances changed and I had to turn into a night person again, I don't think I would have any difficulty doing that.
I think human beings cannot be categorized into such black and white categories for many things. We are, by nature, adaptable species.
"Although every human being displays an unyielding twenty-four-hour pattern, the respective peak and trough points are strikingly different from one individual to the next. For some people, their peak of wakefulness arrives early in the day, and their sleepiness trough arrives early at night. These are “morning types,” and make up about 40 percent of the populace. They prefer to wake at or around dawn, are happy to do so, and function optimally at this time of day. Others are “evening types,”and account for approximately 30 percent of the population. They naturally prefer going to bed late and subsequently wake up late the following morning, or even in the afternoon. The remaining 30 percent of people lie somewhere in between morning and evening types, with a slight leaning toward eveningness, like myself. You may colloquially know these two types of people as “morning larks”and “night owls,”respectively. Unlike morning larks, night owls are frequently incapable of falling asleep early at night, no matter how hard they try. It is only in the early-morning hours that owls can drift off. Having not fallen asleep until late, owls of course strongly dislike waking up early. They are unable to function well at this time, one cause of which is that, despite being “awake,”their brain remains in a more sleep-like state throughout the early morning. This is especially true of a region called the prefrontal cortex, which sits above the eyes, and can be thought of as the head office of the brain. The prefrontal cortex controls high-level thought and logical reasoning, and helps keep our emotions in check. When a night owl is forced to wake up too early, their prefrontal cortex remains in a disabled, “offline”state. Like a cold engine after an early-morning start, it takes a long time before it warms up to operating temperature, and before that will not function efficiently. An adult’s owlness or larkness, also known as their chronotype, is strongly determined by genetics."
If you have these kinds of sleep problems, really that sort of "friendly advice" you get is about as useful as telling a depressed person to "just be happier" or "just stop feeling sorry for yourself." (That is, absolutely useless).
Not even this part is true for every single human being.
I have an unsubstantiated belief that age / family etc affects this. As you add up more commitments, you start having to work with / for others meaning a lot of overlap time is required. This also means morning is the only time you can get to do your own stuff and eventually the habit sets in.
Anecdotally you can see this in kids who've committed to sports etc. Early. They tend to become morning folk just out of habit even if they party it up for certain years.
My experience is that as I get older I get less certain about many things, not more. I think this is mainly due to experience teaching me about the complexities that can hide below the surface of seemingly simple things. My younger self didn't know this - which is ok as he had other things to do.
So it is possible that you just know yourself better than you did ten years ago, and that's the reason that the simple questions about yourself don't have simple answers anymore.
You can opt out of the chaos of possibility and see how far you can go with one path before hopping on another rocket. You can't do all the things, but there is enough time to give full attention to one thing for a while and have time left for quite a few more things. Some people even manage a few things at the same time! I use a software synthesizer made by someone who is somehow a math whiz, programmer, and musician all at once.
I do however believe there is a deep core, that has not changed one bit since my earliest memories. Those aspects would have little to do with however I may appear, socially.