Bàofù xìng áoyè
If there is one concept that has repeatedly come to my attention in the past few weeks, it has been this: Bàofù xìng áoyè (or 報復性熬夜 — Okay, here is the translation — Do hear to the pronunciation as well there). I first mentioned it in Brain Ticklers Ed. 7 through this tweet link. For simplicity, let us call this BXA for the rest of this post.
Over the past few weeks, like a man with a hammer, I saw this behaviour repeatedly by me and my family members. Forget the specific part of “watching Netflix after a long day’s work”, I see it as a conflict or a delicate dance between the psyche and the soma, playing out everyday.
As you know, soma per se does not have its own agency. Soma is just a tool used by the psyche. All of us suffer from a multi-personality disorder in varying degrees. In fact, it is the normal, not a disorder. It is only people with only one personality that have a disorder, if at all they exist. Forget them. For the rest of us normal people, we are talking about one personality in the psyche having a conflict with another personality in the psyche when we indulge in BXA. The first personality fights for the mental-wellbeing and the second one fights for the physical-wellbeing of the organism. (You are the organism, just to remind). Let us call them mental-psyche and physical-psyche.
Coming back to my observations of the past few weeks, I see both BXA and its opposite happening.
There are times when the mental-psyche wins — Even if the physical-psyche says the body needs rest, mental-psyche revolts and ends up watching Netflix (or reading or whatever else — basically, doesn’t let you sleep). This is what BXA is about.
However, there are times when the physical-psyche wins — Even if the mental-psyche says you need to wake up in the morning to not be late for the call (or even to the gym, which is apparently long-term good for the physical-psyche’s client — the body), the physical-psyche revolts and puts you back to sleep for an hour more. It knows that the body’s long-term wellbeing is not possible without the short-term sleep today.
As long as this delicate dance between them is balanced and a virtuous cycle exists, we remain healthy and productive individuals. When this balance is skewed, we turn into an unhealthy organism. It becomes a vicious cycle of sleeping late and waking up late without ever getting back to normal and the long-term physical and mental wellbeing of the organism suffering.
Now, the question is — Who is that boss who can control both these personalities? In fact, there could be multiple sub-personalities within them. In your mental boardroom where all these personalities meet, who runs the show? Is it driven by consensus? Or a dictatorship?
We all (as an aggregate organism) behave differently and it is likely because of this mental boardroom arrangement. So, is it even fair to judge others who don’t follow what we think is right? After all, we do not live with the same people inside our heads as them.
Anyways, that is my philosophy for today.
As homework, please find a name for the reverse of BXA (where the physical-psyche wins over mental-psyche and you end up sleeping longer). And one more — practice saying 報復性熬夜.
