There are people I know who are adverse to getting up before noon.
Since I fade at about 9 p.m., I do not know what time they put their
heads down, but I suspect 2 or 3 a.m. My going off so early and
their going off so late can't be accidental, but why? It must
have to do with diurnal rhythms, acquired or built-in or the result
of outside agencies.
In the wild realms of nature, we have extreme examples of such rhythms.
The most extreme I can think of is the breeding of the
palolo worms
in the South Pacific. With precise timing each fall,
the adults ready for it simply rise to the surface layers and burst,
releasing tons of eggs and sperm, the whole mess a feast for sea
predators and marine birds (and humans).
Fertilizations take place, of course, nearly all wasted.
The successful ones are the survivors, the ancestors of the next
go-around.
Another is the return of the swallows to
San Juan Capistrano
in the spring. Accurate to within a day or so, something moves them
to migrate. There are many more examples. So, what about us?
Just as babies become slowly enculturated, necessarily embedded in
human groups, we adults are the effects of just such continued
multiplied habits and groups of habits.
For myself, coming from
farm people who had to get up early to accommodate the animals,
I was never surrounded by people who were late starters. Also,
at one stage I had to get up early to write radio items I was to
record later that day.
So, these habits are habits, but how acquired, how transmitted?
As I usually do, I'll give it some more thought.
