The World: A Rhythm

The world is made up of rhythms. These rhythms can be daily rhythms such as the light-dark cycles, or these rhythms can happen over and over every millisecond, such as the oscillation of atoms and molecules.

Examples:

• Tidal
• Circadian
• Lunar
• Annual

As you are aware, we also have internal rhythms that respond to light cycles. So now we have biological rhythms that depend on environmental rhythms. It's getting complex now.

An example of this unique event is our biological sleep-wake cycle. You see, our sleep-wake cycle is governed by the light-dark cycle in our environment. We need the oscillation every 12 (or so) hours in our light-dark cycles to occur in order for our sleep/wake cycles to work as they are meant to. Let's introduce two new words here. In high school, you may have learned in science class about constants and variables when conducting experiments. A constant is something that stays the same; it's constant. A variable is something that changes.

For example, we may conduct an experiment because we want to know what type of water is best for helping plants grow quickly. The constant would be the environment in which the plant resides, the size, shape, and age of the plants, and the amount of water given to each subject. The variable would be the type of water given to each subject. In life, we need constants and variables. Life also functions on these principles.

In life, the constant is light. Its oscillation remains constant, and it does not rely on any other cycle to perform its duties, unlike our sleep-wake cycles that rely on the oscillation of our light cycles. Read that again. In other words, we can think of our sleep-wake cycle as something that outsources its daily instructions. Light from the sun does not outsource; it is its own controller. If it does outsource, we have no idea where the instructions come from. Perhaps God, perhaps a source, perhaps a greater being.

Let's look deeper. Our body is full of cycles and oscillations. Some of these oscillations rely on signaling from other oscillations that are governed by the constant (light). Traditionally speaking, even these oscillations that occur in relation to other internal rhythms are still governed by light. Some of these oscillations only happen once they have received signaling from molecules that are only released when we reach total darkness in our environment for a period of time. But what if we never see darkness?

The world that never gets dark.

Our light environment before the invention of the light bulb has always been a constant. It makes sense that it has built itself around a constant. Unfortunately, with the invention of electricity and then devices and modern lighting, we have been able to uncouple the unique cycle between our light environment and all life on Earth. We live in a world that never achieves true darkness.

What happens to the variables that are dependent on the constant to function? They cease to exist or function very poorly. Imagine a car with four different-sized wheels. It may be drivable, but eventually, it's going to break. Each wheel should act in unison and all wheels need to be oscillating at the same time. This is an analogy of how our body functions when we don't have adequate light and dark cycles in our environment.