Remember to Sleep

He’ll have to hold his own among the best students. And remember to sleep. I forgot, and my analytic geometry simply vanished. It took me a month and a half to piece it back together. I kept getting twos, one failing grade after another. Then I got 4/4 on the exam. My teacher was surprised.

You held your own then. He’ll hold his own now. What you learned in that fight couldn’t be bought at any price. It may be the most important warning you can pass on to him: intuition needs its rest, and so does night vision. Without sleep the mind switches off the light.

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Your grandson is among the best now. There’ll be pressure, ambition, a race to get ahead. Everyone will be trying to outrun the speed of sound. Remind him of your story. Tell him to look after himself and get his sleep, because a tired rebel goes blind. And if the whole system should run out of control, as it did for you once, that needn’t be the end of the world. It’s a place to start again. With work and a good hunch he can come through the other side a winner.

Thank you for such a thoughtful, honest, unexpectedly beautiful conversation. Until next time. Take care.