I quit the bed of sloth at two this morning. I slept in a bit. But I understand that not everyone prefers the monkish life. Kant arose at five. It's now 5:30 or so. Rise and shine with Manny! Or at least with Boston. If this '70s tune doesn't get you bangin' on all eight, you need a brain re-wire.
And if this first post of the day is not yet meaty enough for you, there's more:
"The bed is a nest for a whole flock of illnesses." (Immanuel Kant, The Conflict of the Faculties, tr. Gregor, p. 183)
I read Kant and about Kant at an impressionable age, and it really is a pleasure plowing through his texts again as I have been doing recently. I suspect my early rising goes back to my having read, at age 20, that Kant was wont to retire at 10 pm and arise at 5 am.
Soon enough, however, I was out-Kanting Kant with a 4 am arisal from the nocturnal nest. And when I moved out here to the Zone, 4 became 2:30. (A Zone Man must make an early start especially on outdoor activities in the summer before Old Sol gets too uppity.)
2:30 became 2:00, the time the Trappist monks of Tom Merton's day got up. I don't know whether the Trappist regimen is as rigorous today as it was in the '40s and '50s, and I'm not sure I want to know given the ubiquity of decadence these days. But then 2:00 became 1:30 which is now my preferred time of arisal.
I don't use an alarm clock. I have an alarm cat. Max, a husky tuxie, jumps over me as he did this morning, more for his benefit than for mine: he wants his treats. He used to jump on my chest, but I cured him of that with a slap or two.