Starting something could be hard. Maintaining what we started is another thing, so let’s have a look at what is required to maintain. There is so much excitement and praise that are given to people who starts something of significant, which is great. Equally though, that praise should not be withheld from people who are able to maintain excellent standard of output. We overlook the discipline and skillset required day in day out to build something or keep it stable and functional. This does not only apply to the ideas we start but equally for our body. Things like eating healthy, brushing our teeth, exercising regularly and so forth. They are all approach that we constantly need to keep in mind too. Where we have lapse in decision making, degradation kicks in and things start to fall apart. This will in turn ripple to other areas of our life such as in our thinking, relationship, or our work. Our constant effort is keeping balance and maintaining structure, as this is imperative especially at the early phases of an idea’s development. At certain stages of an idea though, it may not rely on or require your constant personal effort solely. There may be a community that rallied behind the idea and now fulfilling certain roles. Your tasks and role then may change to something like keeping the community engaged and on track, so the idea does not lose fuel.

What does hibernation and maintenance have in common for us humans? Someone reading this may think human beings do not hibernate though. Yes, that is correct. I want to share something in that space, which I believe could be beneficial to us beings and our environment. Before we delve further let us find out what hibernation means is its definition. Hibernation usually is linked to certain animals and creatures inhabiting colder climates. During those seasons they go into states of deep sleep and limit their movements. This helps them to not need to travel around during colder months when food is scarce and hard to come by, so they use less of their energy. While you are reading this you may have gone ahead and already made connection with the current state for us humans. If not, I will continue to elaborate why I wanted to share this concept anyway.

Our consumption habit has significantly increased on this planet. We have more people which in turn has increased our footprint but that alone is not the main issue. The degree of impact of our footprint is the concern. We trample through most place we pass because we seek safety, convenience, comfort and sometimes just to satisfy a craving. We could adjust those within our habits which would in turn significantly reduce our impact over our lifetime. I do not want to make this subject something that needs the participation of the whole of humanity to work. It is very overwhelming when we think change can only occur when the whole specie participates. We can always make change in our world and overtime the change may extend to the world around us. I do not want people to disregard the power of their individual choices.

Anyway, back to the subject of hibernation. I have been asking this question over the last few years. I have been studying, researching, and hypothesising it. What would the world be like if human being could hibernate or what would it be like if we introduced the concept of hibernation? That question opens so many tangents of thoughts philosophically, spiritually, and socially. Which I feel needs its own space. However, I will expand onto some benefit that we could gain from such an approach and some steps on individual level one could take in this exploration.

Again, in hibernation we aim to reduce our energy use through limited consumption and movement. So, on a personal level, hibernation could be something you add into your lifestyle on a daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally, or annual basis. If we look at food consumption as an example, you could add fasting or detox. During that season, month, week or days whatever length you discipline your mind and body to muster. This will not only reduce your consumption, but general waste disposal and production will also be reduced on a personal scale towards the environment. I will expand on the topic of fasting and detoxing at later chapter, but I thought I share its connection with the concept of hibernation.

Next you could also reduce energy consumption in the form of light or electricity. I wanted to use the example of light because its benefit extends to areas beyond than just energy reduction. Using minimal or reduced lighting at night and having light only in areas and space of high use helps reduce energy consumption, we know. However, reducing light exposure at night also helps our brain to adjust for better night sleep. If light is blaring in all areas, our brain cannot distinguish night-time and dark as times of rest. The brain remains active and when you go to bed, you may just lie awake for an extended period until the receptors in your brain calms. Reduction in light exposure which includes things such as television, video games, phone and tablets leading up to sleep is great for that good night rest.

One of the components that I wanted to cover further was on movement. Obviously when the creatures in colder climate go into hibernation, they derive great benefit from reduction in movement. This part, I thought us as human being could never be able to achieve it. I thought it could never be possible to bring humanity to a standstill. The pandemic of 2019 proved so otherwise, even if it may have not come with a positive note. However, when I was observing this event unravel, I could feel shifts in the needle of human value. These may have come as a forced condition, but I felt there was something there that we could exploit on planetary level. We as a collective needed to understand the tremendous responsibility that is put in our hands, to allow life to expand and not just our own.

This planet is an ecosystem, and our movement is creating large scale influence. There is so much I want to include in this subject matter, but I feel it may find its own space somewhere in time. However, I mention sometimes it helps to think what we can do on individual level. To implement this, we need to consider our overall lifestyle and living arrangement because this cannot be a one size fits all. We need to put in to thinking how our homes architecture influence community. We need to put into thought waste management, in terms of rubbish as I touched on earlier and sewage. We need to put into thinking how we work, when we work, how frequent we work. Do we still need to do five days per week and keep two days as time for catch up with ourselves and the world? For what are we not making time?